A GUIDE TO 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 



A GUIDE 



TO 



TECHNICAL WRITING 



-BY — 

T. A. RICKARD 



MINING AND SOIENTIFIC PRESS 

San Francisco 

1908 






UBRARY of CONGRESS 
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JUL 6 Jy^a 

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COPY B. 



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Copyright, 1908 

BY 

Mining and Scientific Press. 



\^ PREFACE. 



This little book is intended to help those who wish to 
write clearly on technical subjects. My experience in 
professional writing is not long enough to have entailed 
loss of sympathy with beginners, yet it is sufficient to have 
taught me the value of a guide in these matters. Rules are 
useful, but the understanding of the reason on which a 
rule is based is better. No man can apply a rule intelli- 
gently until he understands when to disregard it. Such 
hints as I have put together are those suggested by daily 
practice as an editor; they claim no finality; all of them 
may not prove acceptable; but if they provoke greater 
attention to the fundamentals of good technical writing, 
this essay will have accomplished a useful purpose. 

T. A. RiCKARD. 

San Francisco, May 1, 1908. 



Table of Contents. 

Preface. 

Introductory 7 

Spurious Coin 16 

Abbreviations 20 

Numbers 25 

The Matter of Education 29 

Hyphens 33 

Some Words and Their Ways 40 

Unconsidered Trifles 52 

Concerning Titles 60 

Matters of Usage 65 

Relative Pronouns 74 

Examples of Journalese 86 

Hints in Grammar 94 

Minor Matters 98 

Specifications 103 

Things to Avoid 107 

Good and Bad Writing 108 

Parting Advice Ill 

A Plea for Greater Simplicity in the Language of Science - 113 




INTRODUCTORY. 



It has been said that in this age the man of science 
appears to be the only one who has anything to say, and 
he is the one that least knows how to say it. This applies 
with particular force to the technical expert, whose sci- 
ence is utilitarian and who, therefore, even more than 
the philosopher, is inclined to disregard the help of cor- 
rect literary expression. In fact, the suggestion of atten- 
tion to such minor matters is apt to be considered merely 
an irritating emphasis on a non-essential. The editor 
of a Denver mining paper felt assured of support when 
he expressed the opinion that attention to the niceties 
of literary form was a mere ^^friir^; all that was 
needed was **to get there, ^' that is, to say what you 
mean in your own way. This view of the matter receives 
endorsement, in deed rather than in theory, from many 
writers on technical subjects. Moreover, the men of the 
mining and metallurgical professions are usually too busy 
to write leisurely, and in their hurry they are apt to be 
heedless of the qualities that enable language to fulfill 
its purpose. 

Herein lies the root of the matter. Language is a 
vehicle of expression designed to convey ideas from one 
man to another. It was not intended for the soliloquy; 
civilized man does not live by himself, nor does he talk 
to himself. The spoken word is heard by those present; 
the written word reaches those at a distance ; the printed 
word is intended to be read by thousands. Careful com- 
position facilitates the conveyance of ideas, the primary 
purpose of writing being to transfer ideas from one man to 




8 A GUIDE TO 

another in such a manner as to give the least trouble to the 
recipient. At best human speech is a clumsy vehicle of 
thought; much of the idea is lost in transit; too much 
energy is consumed in the effort to arrive at the mental 
destination. Obviously we should endeavor to make the 
transfer as complete and as direct as possible. Conscien- 
tious writers try to improve their mode of expression by 
precision of terms, by careful choice of words, and by 
the arrangement of them so that they become efficient 
carriers of thought from one mind to another. Careless 
scribblers do not trouble themselves either to be precise 
in their terms or nice in the selection of words; they 
deem themselves hindered in the freedom of their speech 
by the rules of grammar ; they regard form as a fad. As 
the Denver critic said, they *'want to get there." But 
that is exactly what they fail to do, for *^ getting there" 
means the successful conveyance of ideas from their 
minds to those of their readers, and this they are unable 
to do because their terms do not describe the things they 
refer to, their arrangement of words is turbid, their 
sentences are involved, in fine, their vehicle of thought 
does not perform its proper function. It is as if a man 
wanting to transport a load of potatoes from his farm to 
the nearest town, were to put them, not in sacks, but 
loosely, into a wagon that needs repair, and then took 
any road that offered, driving without regard to ruts or 
stones, but rapidly and carelessly — just to get there — 
without wasting thought as to the manner of the perform- 
ance or attempting to put on any style — just get there — 
at any time, in any way — while the potatoes get shaken 
and bruised, some fall out of the wagon, and the few that 
survive are hardly worth cooking. Another farmer with 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 9 

a little more sense, puts his potatoes in sacks ; he lays the 
sacks so that they rest securely in his wagon, the wheels 
of which are well piled and all the gear in excellent run- 
ning order. He takes the most direct way, avoids obsta- 
cles, drives with a light but firm rein, keeping his eye on 
the road, and without loss of time delivers his potatoes 
in first-class condition to the nearest market. You can 
\ary the parable and you can add to it many details 
illustrating different phases of this subject. 

Among professional men the idea seems to prevail that 
a technical paper at its best is bound to be dry and that it 
is of no particular consequence how it is written as long 
as it is free from errors of fact and inference. To many 
of them the evidence of finish in the diction or of charm 
in the treatment savors of a sort of literary effeminacy, 
the introduction of an element foreign to the subject and 
calculated to weaken the force of a statement. Of course, 
it is possible to spend so much energy on the manner of 
writing as to dilute the matter almost to extinction, as a 
man can be so careful about the choice of his wagon and 
the selection of his road that he fails to reach the market 
w ith his load of potatoes until after dark. But technical 
writers rarely err in this way; on the one hand the 
subjects they choose do not lend themselves to rhapso- 
dies, and, on the other, the careful use of the pen tends to 
crystallize thought, producing simplicity, so that the 
clearness of the writing is due not to the poverty in ideas 
but to the precipitation of them. 

It being granted that writing is an instrument for 
transmitting ideas, we can appeal to the engineer on 
the score of efficiency — the fetish before which he 
bows continually. It might be expected that he would 



10 A GUIDE TO 

try to make his writing as efficient as possible. All 
his training is toward precision, and in his daily 
\^ork he recognizes the need of the right thing in the 
right place; nevertheless, in his writing he is prone to 
employ terms of precision with all the carelessness of a 
boy in the new possession of an air-gun. Although he 
writes continually, whether it be reports, specifications, 
or letters, he is apt to consider the mode of expression as 
too academic for practical purposes. One consequence of 
this indifference is that those who know him only by his 
written records are apt to undervalue his ability. 

Science is organized common sense. Is it sensible to 
take great pains in developing ideas and then to be care- 
less in the transfer of them? If not, then the scientific 
man is unscientific in his writing. Not that I would rate 
the manner above the matter; for we all know people 
with a fatal facility for expression; they have nothing in 
particular to say, so they write for the daily press. But 
in technical and scientific literature, whether of period- 
icals or of books, the complexity of the subject is per- 
mitted to kill the charm of the writing and it would seem 
as if the worth of the matter were considered so great 
as to make the manner of presenting it a superfluity. This 
is done despite a general appreciation of the value of 
art in writing. Two examples may be quoted from among 
great writers. In Ruskin the wording is so exquisite that 
the science is secondary. Take the fourth volume of 
* Modern Painters' and read his description of the mica 
schist on the top of the Matterhorn; it has the charm of 
poetry, and the cadence of music, even if it be not ortho- 
dox geology. Then turn to Huxley and read his essay 
on a bit of coal; there the description is clear and the 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 11 

exposition luminous, science and art are wedded in an 
essay the form of which is as perfect as the work of an 
artist ; the thought, as profound as the utterance of a sage. 
That is indeed scientific literature. 

While engineers and geologists have had to burden 
their library shelves with a lot of half-baked material, 
and while they often suffer from mental dyspepsia by 
reason of the chunks of knowledge, without dressing or 
garniture, placed before them, they have reason also to 
be grateful for some dishes of technical information, well- 
cooked, served with sauce piquante, and adorned with the 
parsley of pleasant fancy. To Rossiter W. Raymond, 
Henry M. Howe, and Edward D. Peters, for example, we 
are indebted for luminous literature sufficient to dem- 
onstrate that technology is not necessarily a desert of 
dry things. In geology the scope is wide, for the fairy 
wand of the constructive imagination is waved over the 
musty page and awakens the imagery of art, irradiating 
the library of the scientific man like those parterres of 
brightly tinted fiowers that spring into sudden life after 
the rain has fallen on the West Australian desert. Among 
the living authors on geology to whom we owe a mem- 
orable amount of delectable reading are John W. Judd 
and Archibald Geikie in England, while in America there 
are a number skilled in this regard, notably S. F. Em- 
mons and F. L. Ransome. If the geologists are ahead ^ 
of the mining engineers and metallurgists in felicity of 
expression, it is largely due to the fact that most of them 
have undergone an academic training before taking a 
special course in science ; consequently, they have ac- 
quired some feeling for the proper use of language and 
a command of words, that practice has cultivntod. 



12 A GUIDE TO 

It is not for me to say much about style, for even the 
definition of this term involves elaborate analysis. The 
technical writer may well begin by trying to learn 
the use of ''proper words in proper places/' that is, 
effective expression obtained by precision, in order that 
the writer may economize the mental labor of the reader. 
After a while he may acquire such skill that his words 
convey more than their dictionary meaning and on rare 
occasions he may even weave a beautiful fabric illus- 
trating the complete harmony of thought and expression. 
But the first principle of style is to say a thing so that it 
is understood. Then out of the several ways in which 
an idea can be stated, choose the particular way that will 
make it bite into the understanding of the reader. If 
you describe a stamp-mill to an experienced millman, a 
mining student, or a bishop, you will vary the manner 
of telling. The most effective will be that which has a 
sympathetic appreciation of the other fellow's receptive- 
ness. Do not plant carnations in a clay soil, or rice in a 
sand heap. As a rule the process is simplified by the 
fact that technical writings are intended to be read by 
technical students and, there being an accord between the 
writer and his readers, he can adopt a uniform manner, 
namely, that which is natural to the professional man 
v/hen dealing with professional matters. Therefore the 
''great art'' of Pater, the "inevitable phrase" of Raleigh, 
or the "personal style" of Symonds are alike in bad 
taste, because they are out of place. They are not fitting. 
On the contrary, the ideal is Spencer's "economy" of 
time and words by saying what there is to say so that it 
cannot be misunderstood. 

Technical writers should take two precepts as their 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 13 

guide: First the *' proper words in proper places" of 
Swift; and then, ^Hhe style is the man" of Buff on; that 
is, precision and sincerity. Affectation is the worst of 
faults. It is a compliment to a writer to be told that 
he writes as he talks, always supposing that he does not 
talk wildly or carelessly. We like those who are natural 
and that is why the most effective writing is natural. 
There are those who, when they prepare matter that is 
to be printed, affect a vocabulary and an idiom foreign 
to them, just as some queer persons have society manners 
as distinguished from their behavior at home. There are 
public occasions, of course, when a certain dignity of 
bearing is befitting; for similar reasons it is proper that 
the irresponsibility and ease of ordinary talk should be 
modified when making statements for print. On the 
whole, if mining engineers, metallurgists, and geologists 
were to write their articles as letters to an honored pro- 
fessional friend, the result would be satisfactory. 

Bad writing is due to two fundamental errors: on the 
one hand, entire disregard for the manner of expression, 
as though it were of no consequence; and on the other, 
subordination of the matter to the manner. The first 
was illustrated by the Denver editor* already quoted; 
the second is typified by the stylists, who wrote with a 
skill far beyond anything worth the saying that they had 
to say. 

Write simply and clearly, be accurate and careful ; 
above all, put yourself in the other fellow's place. Re- 
member the reader. Fluency of diction, largeness of 

♦He has laid down the pen and is now less like a bull in a china 
shop; whether he wields the sword or the hoe does not greatly 
matter. 



14 A GUIDE TO 

vocabulary, ease of execution, and the distinction of a 
particular manner, if they come, will come with practice. 

Young engineers — and even some of the older ones — 
have been known to express the desire to be able to write 
like Dr. Raymond, for example, evidently thinking that 
it is a sort of heaven-sent faculty or else something of a 
trick, the clue to which they might discover. I venture 
to say that in writing, as in many other things, it is prac- 
tice that makes perfect. You will find that the men 
whom you regard as skillful with the pen are those who 
have written a great deal, even if they have not published 
all of it. Raymond writes with a pen or pencil, usually 
the former, because the rigidity of the pencil is more 
fatiguing to the hand than the elasticity of a pen. What 
he writes is subsequently typewritten, of course, but by 
writing himself in long hand he is able to look over the 
first draft as a whole, and make such corrections as 
will avoid the necessity for a second typewritten version. 
At the same time it must be added that he dictates busi- 
ness letters and he can dictate a long article or even 
legal testimony, punctuation included. Skill in any 
department of human activity is apt to be the result of 
taking pains, and writing is no exception. 

Constant dependence upon a stenographer tends to 
repetition and lack of lucidity. It is no wonder that 
the technical men who are dependent upon a stenogra- 
pher do not acquire a satisfactory manner of writing ; for 
many of them only put their pen to paper in order to 
make a signature. When dictating, a man does not have 
the opportunity to see what he has just said, to note how 
it hangs together, to cull and to correct as he proceeds 
until the entire statement expresses his exact meaning. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 15 

It is certain that dictation makes for diffuseness and 
repetition. Herbert Spencer's experience was that after 
he employed an amanuensis his writing became prolix. 
In his later volumes he could cut out a quarter or more, 
whereas in the earlier books the texture was so close as 
to render condensation unnecessary. On the other hand, 
the use of a typewriting machine by an author is open 
to less objection and obviates some of the dangers of 
dictation, although it does not afford quite the same 
facility for correction as the pen or pencil. As a matter 
of practical suggestion, I venture to urge those who care 
to write well that they should re-write at least once, 
if not more often. Froude, in one of his essays, reminds 
his friends that everything he published was written and 
re-written at least five times ! Before the stenographer and 
the copying press came into use, our fathers used to pre- 
pare a first draft, then carefully correct and amend it, and 
preserve it as their own record, sending a clean copy to 
their correspondent. Even twenty years ago mining engi- 
neers and geologists wrote their reports and descriptions 
in long hand, correcting as they proceeded and re-arrang- 
ing their statements with great care, in contrast to the 
slap-dash ways of a fluent dictation that obviates all 
manual labor save the signature. 

It is fair to state that the technical writers of today are 
to blame not so much for their failure to write well, as for 
the fact that they do not try to do better. Insistence on 
the need of closer attention to details and of a better feel- 
ing for the value of careful writing, may induce the 
younger members of the profession to exercise more care. 



16 A GUIDE TO 

SPURIOUS COIN. 

The language of mining and metallurgy suffers from 
the introduction of terms that are provincial, colloquial, 
or plainly vulgar. The language of the stope has its use 
— in the stope; the phrases of the mill-foreman are not 
without their significance — in the mill ; linguistic evolution 
advances in part, at least, by the adoption of words of 
lowly birth or even of those of illegitimate origin, but, if 
the exception be granted, there remains scant excuse for 
the employment of terms that come from the uneducated, 
seeing that we have the choice of synonyms that are the 
gift of scholars. When a college graduate prefers the 
colloquialisms of a working miner to the terminology cur- 
rent among scientific men, he is recreant to his training. 
To some among us the crudities of speech heard in mine 
and mill savor of the practical, and the exactness of the 
lecture room is suggestive of the theorist who does not 
soil his hands with labor or his clothes with grease. 
This is a pathetic fallacy. Yet it has its counterpart in 
journalism. Just as the mining engineer allows his speech 
to be modified by the talk of the laborers he employs, so 
the journalist is apt to allow his writing to be edited as 
to spelling, punctuation, and other supposedly minor 
matters, by the compositor who puts his writing into type. 
Until lately — and in places even now — the editing has 
been done chiefly by the compositors, not the editors, the 
latter performing all the sundry duties of their office 
except the one from which they derive their name. Once 
in a while a real editor, like Raymond, gives powers of 
rare quality to the improvement of technical writing, but 
necessarily the benefit of his service is felt immediately 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 



only by those he is called upon to discipline, namely, the 
contributors to the transactions of the engineering society 
of which he has been secretary-editor so long and so suc- 
cessfully. For the rest, it is chaos. 

The result is seen in the mongrel words that have in- 
vaded the language used by English-speaking engineers, 
geologists, and metallurgists. Take, for example, such 
words as reef, paddock, ledge, sulphurets, gallows frame, 
leaser, and so forth. Bach of these ought to be tabooed. 
Reef is Australian, it has been adopted in South Africa, 
and is now used by Englishmen everywhere. It is not 
needed, it means nothing that 4ode' or Wein' does not 
signify, and if it conveys more it is misleading. The 
sailors and shepherds who started gold mining in Aus- 
tralia thought they saw a resemblance between the out- 
crops of quartz veins and the coral reefs or other ridges 
of rock that make navigation dangerous. Much the same 
notion is involved in the Californian use of ledge, although 
we have learnt long ago that veins of ore do not neces- 
sarily jut out at surface or protrude above the desert 
like the comb of a game cock. 

Neitherledgenorreef is wanted; they ought to be kicked 
down the back-stairs of language by which they made a 
surreptitious entrance. Paddock is another Australian 
bastard ; it means an enclosure for exercising horses, and 
the Australians, being keen horsemen, took to using the 
word in mining. Thus when ore is, or ought to be, ' in the 
bins,' or 'stored,' or 'stacked at surface,' it is said to be 
'in the paddock.' Sulphurets belongs to the Pacific Coast 
and is still employed by persons who ought to know bet- 
ter. It signifies the concentrated pyrite, such as is sepa- 
rated on a vanner. Originally it referred to the sooty 



18 A GUIDE TO 

oxy-sulphates found at the bottom of the zone of oxida- 
tion. In this sense it was used by some scientific men, 
but it has lost all such special meaning and is now only 
a provincialism of the least desirable kind. 

Gallows frame is usually pronounced, and sometimes 
written, gallas frame, as if to obscure its unpleasant sug- 
gestiveness. Certainly it gives no hint of the lofty engi- 
neering structure that stands over the deep shaft of a 
metal mine. To speak of a towering network of latticed 
steel as a gallows frame is plainly absurd, yet that is done 
at Butte and Cripple Creek.* Nor is it necessary; we 
have head-frame, even if we do not want the British pop- 
pet heads. Leaser is another Western colloquialism ; it is 
employed in place of lessee, but as a matter of fact it is a 
variation from lessor. Thus we see how language is turned 
inside out, for leaser is employed to designate the man 
taking a lease from the owner of a mine, while as a matter 
of fact leaser means (see any dictionary) the man that 
grants the lease; that is, it is self-contradictory. 

One more bungling term may be instanced, namely, 
rock, which is used among the copper mines of Lake Supe- 
rior to designate ore. >Jot only do the Finns, the Hunga- 
rians, the Swedes, and the other folk ignorant of the Eng- 
lish language, employ this term, but the graduates from 
Columbia, Harvard, and Yale accept the sloppy usage. 
Ore and rock all over the world — except in Michigan — 
are set in opposition as signifying, respectively, the profit- 
able and the unprofitable product of a mine. 

These localisms may seem harmless enough, but they 
are not; they restrict the usefulness of technical litera- 

♦IncidentaUy it may be mentioned that derrick is derived from 
Derrick, the hangman. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 19 

ture. The American does not know the meaning of pad- 
dock or reef, or reads into them a significance that they 
do not possess; the miner or engineer in Australia and 
South Africa misinterprets gaJlows frame, ledge, and sul- 
phurets. The educated man anywhere is misled by the 
employment of leaser and rock. Scores of similar exam- 
ples are available, but they need not be recited ; they are 
wearisome in themselves and in the iteration of them. 
There is a broader reason for objecting to all such pro- 
vincialisms and insularities. The English language is the 
common heritage of the people of not one mining dis- 
trict, nor one region, nor one country, nor one continent ; 
it is the heritage of the race to which Englishmen, Amer- 
icans, Canadians, Australians, and Afrikanders all belong, 
and also of the various races that they have assimilated 
in the course of their effort to conquer nature the world 
over. The mere fact that a word is distinctively Western 
Australian or Californian, is peculiar to Michigan or New 
Zealand, is reason enough for rejecting it. Let us have 
a mintage that will pass current at full value throughout 
the English-speaking world; let it be the refined gold of 
human speech. 



20 A GUIDE TO 

ABBREVIATIONS. 

Since an abbreviation lacks dignity, it should not be 
used at the close of a paragraph and it ought to be 
avoided even at the end of a sentence. A paragraph 
embodying a reasoned statement should close with a word 
that is significant. In oratory, and even in lesser forms 
of speech, it is natural to end a statement with a word 
of some consequence. You do not ^^hit the nail on the 
head" with a cucumber, and you cannot expect to make 
a statement incisive with a final word that is of no value 
in the expression of your idea. It is this feeling of appro- 
priateness that causes the speaker to close an oration 
with a sentence, and the sentence with a word, that is 
deeply significant. Literature is speech transferred to 
paper. Similar considerations govern the employment 
of language in either case. 

The plural is not given to an abbreviation, because it 
is not a word but a symbol. In some instances the symbol 
used as an abbreviation refers to an entirely different 
word. Thus the term pound is represented by lb., which 
stands for the Latin libra, and the plural of libra would be 
librae, not libras, therefore lbs. is entirely incorrect. Oz. is 
obviously not a direct abbreviation for ounce but the 
apothecary's symbol of that measure, therefore the plural 
is as improper as it would be if given to a chemical sym- 
bol, which is usually not a part of the common name of 
the element it represents. Thus Au and Ag are not abbre- 
viations of 'gold' and * silver' but symbols made from 
letters occurring in the Latin equivalents. 

In the metric system we have to note that cubic centi- 
metre consists of two words, therefore the chemist's ab- 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 21 

breviation c.c. should be written with a period after each 
letter. Some of the chemical societies authorize the use 
of the form cc. but for this there is no excuse save lazi- 
ness; if the first period is omitted for convenience, the 
second might as well be dropped and chemists who do 
not care to bother about niceties should use cc as the sym- 
bol of their literary independence. Colloquially most of 
us speak of a kilo of silver and when we are in a country 
using the metric system we talk about kilos. The last is a 
vulgarism ; as for the singular form, that is apt in printed 
matter to be confused with kilometre. Kilo is an unschol- 
arly abbreviation ; it is better to use kg. for the kilogram 
and km. for the kilometre. 

In regard to the dollar as used in Spanish-American 
countries, especially Mexico, most mining engineers and 
travelers know what confusion is created by using the 
same term for two different currencies, for a Mexican 
dollar happens now, but not always, to be worth about 
one-half of the American dollar, as measured in gold. It 
will be well to use the peso and centavo, instead of the 
dollar and cent, when referring to Mexican currency. The 
centavo is abbreviated to cv. and the peso is represented 
by the letter P with two bars, like those of the dollar sign ; 
thus : ^. This is used in the Philippine Islands. 

The half-spelling of the thermometrical signs (Fahr., 
Cent., Reau.) is ugly and unnecessary, as no two of them 
begin with the same letter. The initial serves the purpose, 
with the addition of a period. 

Many writers appear to have a confused idea that HoO 
and Aq. are equal and interchangeable. The first is the 
symbol of a chemical entity, the second is the apothe- 



22 A GUIDE TO 

cary 's sign for water as a fluid ; one indicates a molecule, 
the other water as a sensible mass or bulk. 

The use of the upper accents to indicate feet and inches 
is objectionable, for it is also employed to indicate min- 
utes and seconds; in practice the use of these signs is apt 
to cause errors, for the omission of one of the accents 
converts inches into feet. Even in giving a measurement 
of time it is better to use the verbal abbreviation of 
minute and second. Thus: 25 min. 17 sec, unless pre- 
ceded by degrees, in which case confusion is unlikely and 
uniformity requires us to write 35° 25' n^\ 

In giving measurements it is better to indicate the mul- 
tiplication by the word ^by' than by the sign X? because 
the first represents the wording as read and the latter, if 
carelessly written, is easily mistaken for the plus sign. 

Per cent has ceased to be an abbreviation, for we no 
longer say per centum. It does not need a period. 

Thus we arrive at the following rules : 

1. Never end a paragraph with an abbreviation. Spell 
the last word. 

2. Abbreviations are used in the singular only. Thus : 
17 lb., not 17 lbs. ; 15 oz., not 15 ozs. ; 11 in., not 11 ins. 

3. A period is required after an abbreviation. Thus: 
The Zinc Corporation Ltd. ; the Mysore Gold Mining Co. ; 
40 ft. long ; 11 in. wide. 

4. Chemical symbols are not abbreviations, but signs. 
They do not require a period. Thus : 

2NaCl+H2SO,=2HCl+Na2S04. 

5. Weights and measures are abbreviated only when 
preceded by a number. Thus : 20 lb. ; several pounds : 
five pounds. 



4 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 23 

6. The following abbreviations are noteworthy: 
Barrel bbl. Gallon gal. 
Bushel bu. Horse-power hp. 
Fathom fm. Yard yd. 

Miles, tons, amperes, and volts are not abbreviated. 

7. In metric measurements the recognized abbrevia- 
tions are : 



Metre 


m. 


Gram 


gm. 


Kilometre 


km. 


Kilogram 


kg. 


Centimetre 


cm. 


Milligram 


mg. 


Millimetre 


mm. 


Cubic centimetre 


c.c. 



The metric gram and the English grain must be spelled 
whenever there is a chance of confusion; otherwise use 
gm. for gram and gr. for grain. 

8. In referring to money, the dollar sign should not be 
used for Mexican currency, but that of the peso, thus, F. 
The following abbreviations are correct: 

Cent c. Florin fl. 

Centavo cv. Penny d. 

' Franc fr. Shilling s. 

In the case of foreign money, it is usually best to spell 
words designating currency, if there is any chance of a 
misunderstanding. 

9. In abbreviating the thermometrical and chemical 
scales, use the following : 

Centigrade C. Reaumur R. 

Fahrenheit F. Beaume B. 

10. The words figure and number are abbreviated 
when preceding a numeral. Thus: ** There is a diagram 
of No. 2 shaft in Fig. 3.^' 



I 



24 A GUIDE TO 

11. The word company is abbreviated when part of an 
official name. Thus: The Camp Bird Mines Co. When 
used informally it must be spelled, as: ''We understand 
that the Camp Bird company is to build a new mill. ' ' The 
and forming part of the name of a company is written 
with the ampersand. Thus : The Butte & Boston Copper 
Mining Co. ; the Denver & Eio Grande Railroad. 

12. Use abbreviations, not signs, to indicate feet and 
inches or minutes and seconds. Thus: 14 ft. 3 in., not 
14' 3^\ Also 34 min. 5 sec, not 34' 5'', unless preceded 
by degrees; then 10° 34' 5". 

13. Use the word 'by' instead of the sign X in giving 
dimensions. Thus 8 by 12 in., not 8X12 inches. Also: 12 
divided by 3, making 4 ft., not 12-^3 = 4 ft., except in 
mathematical tables or treatises. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 25 



NUMBERS. 



In making rules for the use of numbers it is necessary 
to recognize the exceptions. The styles of different 
printers exhibit an amusing diversity and the attempt to 
observe any cast-iron rule will lead to trouble. 

While it is usual to spell numbers less than 10, because 
they are represented by short words, it is desirable to 
use figures even for numbers less than 10 when they are 
grouped with other numbers of 10 and over. Thus : ' ' The 
length in one case was 2 ft., and in the other it was 11 
ft. ' ' This puts the two figures in better contrast than by 
saying: *^The length in one case was two feet, and in the 
the other it was 11 ft. ' ' Similarly, when weights or meas- 
urements are being compared. Thus: *' The timbers used 
were 2 by 4 by 12 inches'' or *'one vat was 8 ft. deep and 
6 ft. diam., while the other was 10 ft. deep and 8 ft. diam- 
eter." The figures emphasize the idea of relation of size 
better than if the dimensions were expressed in words. 

Figures indicate some attempt to be accurate, so that 
when a mere approximation is intended it is well to avoid 
the use of them. Thus: ^'He lived here twenty years 
ago,'' if it was about twenty years ago; but if it was 
exactly 20 years, then employ the figures. 

Three shades of accuracy are expressed by ten, 10, 
and 10.0. Ten is approximate, 10 is accurate, 10.0 is 
exact. The last form is used only in connection with 
other decimals. For example: *^One streak of ore is 8.4 
in. wide, another is 9.3 in., and a third 10.0"; meaning 
thereby that the possibility of a slight excess or deduc- 
tion from 10 has been considered, and rejected, the meas- 
urement being absolute. 



26 A GUIDE TO 

The use of unnecessary ciphers is apt to cause an error 
by misplacing the decimal point. Thus $5.00 may be 
made $500 by the dropping of the point. It is obvious 
that $5.00 offers no advantage over $5 ; it is calculated to 
mislead, for the extra ciphers make it loom larger than 
the single figure. People who offer rewards for missing 
poodles do well to state that they are prepared to pay 
$1.00 for the lost dog, for $1.00 looks like more money 
than $1, which seems little enough for a valuable puppy. 

In regard to the use of the comma, it is customary to 
employ it for the thousands, but this is not necessary and 
it divides the figures unpleasantly ; therefore, it is well to 
write 5000 and 2500 rather than 5,000 and 2,500, using 
the comma at the next stage. Thus : 5000, not 5,000 ; but 
51,250, not 51250. 

As to decimals, it is fair to say that technical men 
should employ them whenever they mean to be exact and 
whenever they have the information permitting of such 
exactness, reserving the employment of fractions for 
approximate statements. Thus: ^*The ore carries 2.25 
(not 2l^) oz. gold and 10.75 (not 10%) oz. silver per 
ton,'' if an assay has proved this to be the case. It is 
best to say, ^^The distance is 2^ miles" when all you 
know is that it is more than 2, and less than 3, miles. If 
the distance has been measured and it is known to be 
exactly 2.5 miles, the decimal is preferable. Do not make 
a pretense of accuracy by using decimals when they are 
not wanted. 

Hours or minutes less than 10 should be spelled (two 
hours) unless grouped with figures of 10 and over (12 
hr.) or with a decimal (as 1.5 hr). 'One and five-tenths 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 27 

hours' is preferably not spelled because it spreads too 
much and is clumsy. 

There is another exception: I refer to dimensions such 
as eighth, sixteenth, or thirty-second, which are used in 
mechanical engineering, where tools and appliances are 
made in fractions of an inch. To say 0.125 in. or 0.03125 
in. will not convey what is meant, because the fractions 
refer to standard sizes quoted in the trade, and not actual 
measurements. A quarter-inch plate is not necessarily 
exactly 0.25 in. thick. 

The foregoing ideas are embodied in the following 
rules : 

1. Use figures for 10 and for numbers over 10. Spell 
those under 10. 

The following exceptions must be noted : 

(a) When beginning a sentence, as: **Pourteen men 
working six days completed the dam.'' 

(b) When there are several references to numbers, 
so that the figures accentuate the statement of fact. 
*^Nine men working 6 days with machine-drills were able 
to sink the shaft 9 ft., breaking 75 tons of ore." 

(c) When one number follows another, spell one of 
them, preferably the smaller: *^He took samples at 50 
five-foot intervals." **The manager bought eleven 24-ft. 
belts." 

(d) When an approximation is intended. Thus: 
^*This was a lively mining camp twenty years ago." *^IIe 
will be a rich man ten years hence." 

2. Omit unnecessary ciphers in stating sums of money. 
Thus : $2, not $2.00 ; $5000, not $5,000.00. 

3. Use the comma for more than four figures, not oth- 
erwise. Thus : 5000 and 50,000. 



28 A GUIDE TO 

4. Use decimals in place of fractions whenever you 
mean to be exact, not otherwise. 

5. In decimal numbers having no units, a cipher should 
be placed before the decimal point. Thus: Not .32 lb., 
but 0.32 pound. 



Usage determines the meaning of words. In the end a 
word gets to mean what people in general intend it to 
mean. When you violate good use, you employ the word 
in a sense likely to be misunderstood, and then the word 
becomes either a blank or a snare. The Western Ameri- 
can who speaks of doing the work of a ' mucker ' in a mine 
is unintelligible to the Australian, and the New Zealander 
who talks of putting ore in a ^paddock' is offering not 
information, but a riddle, to the Canadian. The use of 
spurious words or the colloquial jargon of the illiterate 
tends to take us back to the monkey stage, for man's chief 
distinction from the lower animals is his gift of intelli- 
gent speech. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 29 

THE MATTER OP EDUCATION. 

Technical men, such as engineers and geologists, are 
not always graduates from a university nor, even if they 
happen to have received a liberal education, are they 
necessarily well trained in the use of the English lan- 
guage — that is, the training founded upon lessons in the 
languages of antiquity, followed by familiarity with the 
classics of their own tongue. Undoubtedly such a prepa- 
ration is useful, but the value of it can be over-estimated. 
Not long ago a mining engineer, who occasionally con- 
tributes to technical journals, took pains to explain to me 
that he was not a college man, as if to excuse the lack 
of finish in his writing. It seems worth while to dwell on 
this point, in order to encourage those who have both 
knowledge and ability to write intelligently, without the 
aid of previous teaching either in Greek and Latin or in 
Milton and Meredith. To be taught a language systemat- 
ically is like any other form of mental training, it is a 
short-cut to efficiency, enabling the student to acquire, 
rapidly and thoroughly, such skill as would otherwise be 
attained only laboriously and imperfectly. Nevertheless, 
there are those that have taught themselves, by practice 
and association, whether of men or books, to write well 
the language of foreign lands or of their own; on the 
other hand, there are many owners of a university diploma 
that have so skillfully evaded instruction in the proper 
use of their own language, not to mention a foreign 
tongue, that they are, to all intents and purposes, illite- 
rate. The modest fellow who excused himself to me, on 
the occasion above mentioned, had learned to write in a 
straight-forward unpretentious way, which in itself con- 



30 A GUIDE TO 

stituted the style best adapted to technology. He might 
lack the classical learning required of a man competent 
to undertake the preparation of a ^Synthetic Philosophy' 
or 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' or an 
* Essay on Criticism/ but for the purpose in hand, namely, 
to describe an ore deposit or discuss a problem in metal- 
lurgy, he was adequately equipped. Rhetorical confec- 
tionery and frills of any kind are out of place in tech- 
nical writing, except on rare occasions. The sort of self- 
consciousness that leads to verbal gymnastics is in itself 
bad form and it is affected only by the half-educated. 
There is the simplicity of diction marking the man ac- 
quainted with several languages and the master of at 
least one of them; and there is the simplicity of unpre- 
tentious speech belonging to the man who has but a 
working knowledge of his own language, and makes the 
most of the instrument at his command. Between them 
comes the writer who ought to know better, but, from 
conceit or ignorance, deems it a waste of energy to use 
his verbal weapons so that they shape his thoughts into 
carven words, whether vitalized in the speech of the mo- 
ment or sculptured in the writing that lives. 

Two examples, founded on fact, will illustrate my argu- 
ment. I had the pleasure of editing a long and detailed 
article describing the operations of a certain metallurgical 
process ; there was no room for a literary pose, the whole 
account was eminently practical and businesslike. This 
article was so well written as to require scarcely any edit- 
ing, and when it was published I referred gratefully to 
the excellence of the writing. Happening to discuss the 
incident with a friend, who knew the writer of the article 
personally — as I did not — this common friend asked me 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 31 

to guess for what occupation the writer had been trained, 
and I answered: ^^The ministry/' This happened to be 
exactly right, for he had been to Oxford and was intended 
for the Church before he wandered into a cyanide mill. 
All the marks were there, such as a quiet command of 
English and a masterful use of it, making a difficult bit 
of technical exposition as clear and interesting as the 
subject permitted. And since ^Hhe home of lost causes'' 
is not my alma mater, I am glad to acknowledge the value 
of Oxonian English in the literature of science. More of 
it would be a great relief to the readers — not to mention 
the hard-working editors — of technical periodicals. 

My other example is less different than, at first sight, 
it may appear. I have in mind an article describing min- 
ing conditions in a Central American republic. Such 
descriptions are usually made as verbally florid as the 
vegetation of the tropics and they are frequently as in- 
volved as the jungle itself; at the best, it is customary to 
bespatter them with unnecessary Spanish words and to 
deal in gorgeous generalities supposed to indicate the 
unlimited mineral resources of an inaccessible region. 
From all these common faults, this article was free. The 
sentences were short and to the point. The statements 
conveyed information and yet avoided exaggeration. The 
writer kept what he knew at first hand separate from 
what he had merely been told ; he gave just the data the 
average intelligent reader would be likely to want, and a 
touch of humor was not lacking in a reference to the 
queer things that happen on the Spanish-American fron- 
tier. It was like the sensible talk of an intelligent trav- 
eler who had kept his eyes open and his notebook handy. 
The writer had received no special training in his own Ian- 



32 A GUIDE TO 

guage, nor in that of another; as the graduate of a tech- 
nical college he had been given rather more of contempt 
than love for the use of proper words in proper places, 
and yet, by native intelligence and the desire to do his 
task well — his task being to tell what he knew of mining 
in this particular region — he had succeeded in preparing 
a contribution that was in its way as good as that of the 
Oxford man. Both men were unaffected, both kept in 
mind the purpose of the writing, and both knew what 
they were talking about. The moral of it all is that bad 
writing is due either to insincerity, or carelessness, or 
ignorance. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 33 



HYPHENS. 



Hyphens may be considered ungainly, but they are 
necessities in technical writing, where materials and 
machinery are continually being described under condi- 
tions modifying each other. There is a varying degree 
of intimacy between adjacent words. This is expressed 
in three ways : 

1. Mere juxtaposition of separate words, indicating a 
loose connection. 

2. Hyphenation, implying intimacy without entire 
loss of individuality. 

3. Compounds, expressing a singleness of meaning. 
Thus: An ^ore deposit' is a deposit of ore, and you can 

drive a cross-cut to find either the deposit or the ore. 
Moreover, a deposit is not necessarily composed of ore ; it 
may consist of mud or guano. Likewise the ore may not 
be in the form of a deposit ; it may be in a mill-bin, or in 
a furnace. In the case of an 'ore-shoot' there is a duality, 
but not a separateness, of meaning, and while the shoot 
may be mentioned by itself the idea of ore is assumed, this 
intimacy being recognized by hyphenation. Finally, in 
*orebody, ' we have a true compound, for the miner does 
not drive his drift to discover some indeterminate kind 
of body, nor does he say that the body is large or rich ; 
he speaks of orebody as signifying one idea, the separate 
portions of which, the body (substance) and the ore (at- 
tributive), are completely merged in the notion of a mass 
of valuable rock, constituting an orebody. Another ex- 
ample may be given, thus : 

A blackbird cage is a cage for the songster known as 
the blackbird. 



34 A GUIDE TO 

A black-bird cage is a cage for birds that are black. 

A black bird-cage is a black cage for birds. 

A black bird cage might mean a black cage for birds, or 
a cage for black birds, or a cage for blackbirds. Unless 
two of the three words are hyphenated or compounded, 
the meaning remains unknown. Further examples refer- 
ring to technical subjects will make clear the service done 
by hyphens. 

A single-stamp mill is one possessing batteries of one 
stamp apiece, like the Nissen stamp, instead of the usual 
five. 

A single stamp-mill is a lonely mill, like some to be seen 
jn the deserts of Nevada. 

A single-stamp-mill possesses only one stamp, after the 
Lake Superior fashion, where one big steam-stamp does 
the work of 150 ordinary gravity stamps. 

A crude ore-bin is an ore-bin of crude construction ; a 
crude-ore bin is one made to contain crude ore, that is, 
ore as it comes from the mine, before concentration in the 
mill; a crude ore bin is an example of crude writing. 

In the manufacture of nitro-glycerine the charge is 
'drowned' in a large ,volume of cold water; the recep- 
tacle in which this is done is termed the ' drowning-tank. ' 
Should the hyphen be omitted, it might be supposed that 
the tank was drowning and sympathy would be needlessly 
excited. Similar examples are cooling-floor, roasting- 
hearth, grinding-plate, settling- vat, amalgamating-pan, 
and so forth. 

The first part of these compound words is a gerund; 
that is, it is a verbal noun identical in form with the parti- 
ciple; the participle is an adjective, but the gerund is a 
noun that has the power to govern another noun. For 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 35 

example: A cooling floor is one that, having been hot, 
is becoming cold. Here cooling is a participle serving as 
an adjective. A cooling-floor is a floor upon which hot 
ore is placed for the purpose of cooling; in other words, 
it is a floor employed for cooling ore. Here cooling is a 
gerund, doing duty as a noun. 

Hyphenation is necessary to prevent ambiguity. Thus 
a settling-vat is a vat in which particles of ore are likely 
to settle, but a settling vat is one that is subsiding, for 
example, by reason of a landslip or bad foundation. A 
zinc box is made of zinc, but a zinc-box contains zinc ; for 
example, the compartments in which zinc is placed in 
order to precipitate gold from cyanide solutions. These 
boxes are precipitating-boxes, not precipitating boxes, be- 
cause they do not precipitate the gold, they merely afford 
the facilities for the precipitation. A slag-pot receives 
slag ; it is not made of slag, as is a slag pile. 

The following quotation vividly illustrates the value of 
the hyphen: *'Iron screens in zinc boxes are detrimental 
in as much as they facilitate solution of zinc.'' The 
screens are made of iron and they are placed in wooden 
boxes, into which zinc shaving also is introduced; the 
boxes are not made of zinc, although the sentence says so. 
It ought to read: ^^Iron screens in zinc-boxes are detri- 
mental because they facilitate the solution of zinc." 

A roasting-furnace is one in which ore is roasted. The 
furnace does not do the roasting, but the fuel that is in it. 
A roasting furnace is one that is being consumed by exces- 
sive heat, as in a conflagration. A grinding plate is one 
that grinds, but usually it is a grinding-plate, that is, a 
piece of steel or iron by the medium of which the ore is 
ground against another hard surface. It is a plate for 




36 A GUIDE TO 

grinding. Likewise an amalgamating-pan is one in which 
the process of amalgamation or combination with mer- 
cury is effected; it is not the pan that does the work; 
it only provides the receptacle in which the action takes 
place. If it were the active agent, as sometimes the iron 
is actually supposed to be in the chemistry of the process, 
then indeed it would be correct to call it an amalgamating 
pan, without hyphenation. Familiar examples are carv- 
ing-knife, walking-stick, and chewing-gum. 

''Brown agitating tank." This might suggest that a 
tank that was brown in color was being agitated. Each 
word needs amendment. On reading the context, the 
reader could ascertain that it was not a tank but a vat, 
for cyanidation; it was a vat in which the solution was 
agitated; it was the invention of Brown. Therefore, the 
title should be Brown's agitating-vat (that is, vat for agi- 
tating) or agitator-vat. 

Between true nouns the hyphen may be needed to mark 
intimacy between words. Thus: ''The gases are taken 
into steel dust-chambers where a large proportion of the 
flue dust is settled." A hyphen is needed after the first 
dust, otherwise it may be chambers containing steel-dust, 
and not dust-chambers made of steel, as is meant. Flue 
dust also requires hyphenation; the dust does not con- 
sist of flues. 

A wet-milling plant is one in which a wet process is 
employed, while a wet milling-plant is a mill in which 
water is wasted ; it is a sloppy establishment. 

In some cases the hyphen is needed to prevent confu- 
sion or to give emphasis to the meaning of the prefix re 
as in: 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 37 

Re-treat (to treat over again), which might be mistaken 
for retreat (to retire). 

Reconstruct is equivalent to rebuild but re-construct 
goes a little further, as if to say that it is being built all 
over again. Before a word beginning with a vowel a 
hyphen is especially desirable, as in re-ignite, re-imburse, 
re-incorporate. The prefix re is given with varying em- 
phasis, as in relegate and re-locate; in the latter the idea 
of repetition of the act of locating is strong, therefore we 
write re-locate and not relocate. In co-operate and co- 
ordinate the hyphen takes the place of a dieresis. 

Between numbers expressing a range of measure or 
quantity, it is well to avoid using a hyphen. Thus : ' ' The 
addition of 5-7 c.c. of preventive solution" is improved 
by writing ^'5 to 7 c.c," for a dash in the manuscript 
might be taken for a period; in reading we say *'to, " 
therefore it is well to write it. 

The fifty-first means the one coming after fifty, but the 
fifty first are the fifty that come first, or the first fifty. 

The hyphen is not needed between adjectives, as light 
blue, yellowish green, where the first plays the part of an 
adverb. In blue-black it seems unavoidable. 

Between an adverb and a participle (even in an adjec- 
tival form) the hyphen is not required, thus: well defined, 
finely developed. 

Two nouns should be hyphenated if they are brought 
together to name one thing and neither of them is used 
distinctively in the adjectival sense. Such compounds are 
elliptical condensations of a phrase, and the normal se- 
quence of the words is inverted. Thus we have freight- 
train (train for freight), foot-note (note at the foot), 
field-work (work in the field). 



38 A GUIDE TO 

Two words grouped in an attributive position seem to 
be welded together, but when they are in the predicate 
they appear to have an independent meaning. The attrib- 
utive group is hyphenated, while the predicate is not; in 
the predicate the adverb is stronger, thus : 

1. ^*I followed the half-obliterated footsteps/' 

2. *'The footsteps were half obliterated.'' 

Of course, hyphenation can be carried too far, and it 
has been abused even by good writers for the reason, 
among others, that they have developed the habit from 
familiarity with German, a language in which compound- 
ing is carried to a distressing extreme. Thus we read : 

1. '*The supply of lead-ore at any particular plant." 

2. *' These magnetite-deposits are associated with 
gneisses. ' ' 

3. **The nickel in an iron-ore would be of value." 

4. ** Decrease in the residual sulphur-values, indicating 
a greater sulphur-removal. ' ' 

5. ''The use of mining-machinery during a period of 
five years." 

6. ''Comparatively faw bituminous coal-mines can be 
equipped. ' ' 

7. "The several makes to-day differ only in details." 

8. "Under every-day working-conditions." 

These examples are taken from a few pages of Vol. 
XXIX, of the Transactions of the American Institute of 
Mining Engineers. In most instances the hyphens are not 
needed, for they do not make the meaning clearer; they 
are not regrettable necessities, but avoidable disfigure- 
ments. In several cases the use of them can be set aside 
advantagously, for "these deposits of magnetite" is pref- 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 39 

erable to '* these magnetite deposits." In the fourth ex- 
ample, the hyphen is awkward. In the fifth it seems 
wholly unnecessary. In the sixth, it is not the mines 
but the coal that is bituminous, therefore it ought to be 
bituminous-coal mines. To-day does not need a hyphen ; 
it is a compound so familiar as to have attained the mean- 
ing of a single word. In the last example we have a Ger- 
manized construction that is expressive but awkward; 
there is nothing gained and something lost by the use of 
the hyphens. Why not write: ^* Under everyday condi- 
tions of work." It is well to make technical writing as 
attractive as the subject will permit. 

Hyphenation represents an early stage of union. After 
a while, by use, the association of ideas becomes fixed, 
so that the pair of words is wedded, forming a literary 
unit. The chief reason for hyphenation of two words is 
that when so connected they have a meaning slightly dif- 
ferent from that which they convey when given sepa- 
rately. But it will not do to lean too heavily on the 
hyphen; illustrations of distinctions can be given, as 
above, but in practice it is well to avoid all risk of confu- 
sion. In speaking there is a variation of pronunciation 
between the members of a hyphenated couple, affording 
a subtle distinction not transferable to written language. 
In writing, the desire to be lucid should be the controlling 
factor. 



40 A GUIDE TO 

SOME WORDS AND THEIR WAYS. 

The description of metallurgical processes and the ex- 
planation of technical methods, whether in mine or mill, 
will be rendered clearer, and therefore more useful, by 
the selection of the right words. 

Vat and tank are used as synonyms, tank having come 
into general use in connection with cyanide work. This 
is unfortunate. A tank is a large vessel or receptacle, 
made either of wood or of metal, intended to contain a 
fluid, such as gas or water. * Water tank' and ^gasoline 
tank' represent correct usage. The transfer of the word 
to chemistry is not warranted. For that purpose we have 
vat^ that is, a vessel or tub in which ore is washed or sub- 
jected to chemical treatment. * Cyanide vat' and ^chlori- 
nation vat' are correct. Because illiterate and non-tech- 
nical people use technical terms wrongly, engineers are 
not justified in adopting sloppy ways of speech. 

Ledge, reef, and lead afford examples of the same kind. 
Ledge and reef are localisms, originating in California 
and Australia, based on early geological misconceptions 
of the nature of a 4ode" or 'vein.' Ledge refers to the 
prominence of the outcrop and reef to the projecting edge, 
resembling the rocks that endanger navigation. There is 
no need of these terms now. In so far as they have a 
special significance, it is misleading. As to lead, it is a 
good old term, for it is allied to 'lode' and indicates the 
meaning of the latter, as something that leads the miner 
in his exploration, but the term is now applied exclusively 
to gravel deposits, as in 'deep lead,' which is an alluvial 
channel blanketed by lava. Lead should not be used as a 
synonym for 'vein' or 'lode.' 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 41 

Sulphuret is rarely used nowadays save on the Pacific 
Coast. It is a term that some people who ought to know 
better use in place of 'sulphide.' Sulphuret was used at 
one time to designate the earthy sulphates formed in the 
early stages of oxidation of sulphides, but this distinc- 
tion is no longer observed and the term is now a mere 
localism, without special meaning. 'Concentrate' and 
'sulphide' are preferable. 

The use of the term country rock amounts to tautology, 
as was pointed out by Le Neve Foster many years ago. 
If we could agree to use country by itself, it would be 
well. Obviously it must be rock, although we read some- 
time ago in a Colorado paper of a drift that was "in no 
formation," meaning thereby that it was in rock of no 
definite structure. The workings of a mine cannot pene- 
trate anything but rock, unless it be a snow-drift, as hap- 
pened once in the case of some crafty contractors, who 
closely timbered 50 ft. of an adit that went through a 
snowslide before it became a bore in a granite mountain. 

Vein-stone is a similar survival from the days when 
mining literature was written for people that were not 
supposed to know anything about such matters. And 
thus we come to Australian usage, which is derived from 
untechnical sources. At Bendigo and Ballarat they talk 
of "good-looking stone," meaning 'ore'; of "a make of 
stone," meaning an 'ore-shoot'; they strike "rich gold" 
in a shaft and find "poor gold" in a cross-cut, meaning 
quartz rich or poor in gold. These terms appear even in 
Australian mine reports that are prepared by educated 
men, who simply get their terminology from illiterate 
workmen. 

Fully as bad is the usage obtaining in the Lake Supe- 



42 A GUIDE TO 

rior copper mines, where they exploit copper rock and 
obtain mineral. For the use of rock instead of 'ore' 
there is no excuse whatever; for mineral, meaning 
the native copper extracted by milling, there is some 
reason, for is it not the mineral in that region? It 
is a localism that has become rooted by repetition. But 
no self-respecting engineer ought to use rock in the Ke- 
weenaw way. 

Then there is mineralization, to which some object. It 
comes to us from the French, who will say that an ore is 
Hen mineralise^ just as we (with an apology) may say that 
it is *well mineralized.' Minerai is French for 'ore' and 
mineralise is employed as the corresponding adjective, 
despite its derivation from mineral. When we use 'min- 
eralized' and 'mineralization,' we mean that the rock is 
full of the valuable minerals that constitute, or else accom- 
pany, ore, but as we do not hark back to minerai^ our use 
of these English terms is not academic. However, in de- 
fault of better terms, mineralized and mineralization are 
acceptable. 

In Australia they call a level in a mine a drive, and this 
is the custom among Eu'glishmen generally. In America 
we say drift, and this is correct. A miner drives his 
working ahead and the result is a drift. For example, it 
is correct to say: 

1. "Ten feet of driving was accomplished." 

2. ' ' The north drift was advanced iSve feet. ' ' 

3. "The lessees drove the drift as rapidly as possible." 
Similarly, in regard to another form of mine working, 

you rise and the result is a raise. It should never be up- 
raise, as sometimes appears in reports on mines. Down- 
winze would be no worse. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 42 

It is unfortunate that in so good a book as Le Neve 
Foster's ^Textbook of Stone and Ore Mining' he should 
have given chute as the American equivalent of ^ore- 
shoot' — which it is not. The employment of chute instead 
of shoot to describe an orebody of definite shape and pitch 
is now an English error, for it is rare in America. An 
error it is. Chute is a mode of spelling ^shute, ' which is 
an inclined trough for conveying materials. Thus: 

**The ore broken from the new ore-shoot passes down 
the chute that leads to the mill. ' ' 

The distinction, now fairly well established, between 
these two terms is worthy of general adoption among 
English-speaking technical men. 

Tunnel is commonly employed to designate a drift or 
level penetrating a hillside; this is wrong, for a 'tunnel' 
is a gallery or bore that goes through a mountain from 
daylight to daylight, as a railroad Hunnel' does. The 
long cross-cut or drift that enters from the surface, be- 
coming the main artery of the mine, serving both as an 
exit and to drain the workings, may best be labeled an 
adit, which is a good old technical word long known to 
miners. On the other hand, the short drifts or levels that 
are run by prospectors into the hillsides of our mining re- 
gions, and which cannot well be called by so big a name as 
adit, need not be called tunnels, seeing that * prospecting 
drift' or * exploratory level' or plain drift or level will 
serve for the purpose. The French have galerlc and we 
sometimes use the English equivalent, but it has become 
archaic. 

When words have a prescribed duty to perform in 
technology, it is well to limit their use to a particular 
meaning. Thus locate and location are employed in min- 



44 



A GUIDE TO 



ing to signify, respectively, the act of delimiting a claim 
and the claim when thus delimited. It is a common error 
to use locate instead of place, situate, reside, find, etc., 
as in the following examples : 

1. *^The company located the mill on the side of Gold 
hill.'' 

2. * ' The town is located on Alder creek. ' ' 

3. **He was located at Tonopah." 

4. *'The superintendent located the ore-shoot at the 
fourth level." 

5. *^ Where the office, quarters for men, and ore-bins 
are to be located. 

In th6 first it would be right to say that the millsite was 
located at a certain place, but the building itself was built, 
or erected there. The second case is common ; the town is 
situated, although the townsite might be located, on the 
creek. The third is an ugly colloquialism. It should be : 
''He resided at Tonopah," or plainly, ''he lived" there. 
In the fourth, the writer means that the position of the 
ore-shoot was ascertained, or briefly, that "the superin- 
tendent found the ore-^hoot." In the fifth, built will 
state the meaning. 

6. "Ore has been found on four new locations on the 
property. ' ' He does not mean what he says, for he states 
that ore has been found on four new claims (that have 
been located, but not patented). He means four new 
places or spots or points. 

7. In one of the Geological Survey reports it is writ- 
ten: "In planning the position of stopes the assay charts 
often enable the location of pillars in relatively poor ma- 
terial. " This should read: "In platting the stopes the 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 45 

assay-charts often indicate the best position for pillars in 
the relatively poor lode-matter. 

The last abomination in the way of making locate do 
improper service is that which I saw lately in a news- 
paper heading ; it appears that a man had found his miss- 
ing wife, and the fact was announced thus : ' ' Locates his 
wife in Napa." 

A test for the use of words is furnished by translating 
such sentences into a foreign language, when it will be 
noted that the translator will disregard the colloquialisms, 
finding it necessary to adopt the equivalents of the words 
that ought to have been employed. 

Section is another word that, despite a specific meaning, 
is employed for sundry purposes. One would not use a 
pair of compasses as a fork nor a scalpel to cut bread. 
Precision of speech is required to express scientific ideas, 
and we lose such precision by making technical words do 
the chores of literary work. Here are some examples : 

1. ^^The richest section of this mining district." 

2. ^'They have as good a property as there is in that 
section of the camp." 

3. *^In the southern section of the State, they grow 
oranges. ' ' 

In all of these, part or portion is meant. Section means 
the view of something along an intersecting plane, as used 
in geology or drawing. As the subdivision of a township, 
another meaning has been established. These are enough ; 
for other purposes we have other words. Even the Ameri- 
can Association for the Advancement of Science might 
have spared the word from doing duty to designate the 
divisions into which the Association is separated for the 
discussion of different subjects, so that there is a 'Section 



46 



A GUIDE TO 



of Geology/ another of Astronomy, and so forth. But it 
is too much to expect scientific men to make a study of 
the use of language ; in that, they continue to be far be- 
hind people of lower intelligence. 

The words dip, hade, and pitch are used confusedly. It 
will be well to apply dip to the inclination (from the hori- 
zontal) of strata, veins, and faults, rejecting hade as a 
term no longer necessary and only likely to make confu- 
sion, because it refers to the angle from the vertical. The 
angle made by an ore-shoot in the plane of the vein is its 
pitch; this also should be measured from the horizontal. 
Thus: 

1. ^^The pitch of the apex of the saddles at Bendigo 
ranges from 10 to 30°, either north or south." 

2. The main orebody had a pitch of 80° southeast." 
The word slimer is used by several manufacturers of 

machinery to describe a device for treating slime, by 
concentration of the valuable minerals in it. A slimer 
is a machine that makes slime ; such is a tube-mill. A 
slime-table is one that treats this mill-product. 

'* John Smith is manager of the Great Bullion Co." No, 
he is manager for the con^pany, and manager of the mine. 
Similarly, he may be consulting engineer to the neigh- 
boring mining company. 

Use lessee, not leaser; the latter is a mere vulgarism 
and apt to be confused with the lessor, who is on the oppo- 
site side of the fence. As explained elsewhere, leaser is 
really a variation of lessor. 

**A partial history of the district indicates that, etc." 
Meaning a part history or an incomplete history or a 
portion of the history, but not a prejudiced history, as 
might well be supposed. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 47 

*^At times the ore is very rich." Meaning, in places. 

A curious example of the misuse of technical terms is 
afforded by Gilpin county, Colorado, where it has become 
the local habit to speak of the concentrate saved on shak- 
ing tables as failings.' It is literally a contradiction in 
terms. 

Value. — The misuse of this word, and its plural, is a 
good example of a colloquialism, harmless enough in a 
stope or in a mill, but a solecism in literature. It is also 
an instance of the employment of the abstract for the 
concrete, one of the primary blunders in poor writing. 
**This mill is intended to extract the values in the ore" 
is a vague way of saying that it is meant to extract the 
gold or lead or silver or the valuable metals in the ore. 
Value is the desirability or worth of a thing; it is an 
attribute, not a substance. A man that designs a concen- 
trator to ^^ catch the values," might as well build a rail- 
road to pursue a quadratic equation. Nevertheless, this 
vulgarism of the mining camp has crept into technical 
literature, and it can be found in articles otherwise well 
edited. Here are some examples : 

1. *^In sinking the values were lost." Meaning that 
the ore became poor, or that the valuable ore ended. 

2. **The vanner saved all the values in the ore." 
Meaning, the valuable minerals that the ore contained, 
or all that was valuable in it. 

3. *^And then the gold values are precipitated on zinc 
shavings." No, it is the metallic gold that is precipitated ; 
you can precipitate a panic by reckless banking, but you 
dont precipitate anything so vague as values on some- 
thing so tangible as zinc shaving. 

4. *'In this region there are found ore deposits, prin- 



48 A GUIDE TO 

cipally with gold and copper values." Meaning, chiefly 
valuable for gold and copper. 

5. ''With the development of values in the quartz 
veins south of the Butte hill, there has been a scramble for 
claims. ' ' It would be better to say, ^ ^ When it was proved 
that the quartz veins were valuable, etc.'' 

6. ^^The mill will be used to test the copper values of 
the rock from the Nonesuch mine.'' Meaning, the value 
of the ore as regards copper, or its copper content. 

7. ^^The gold values being largely free-milling." Here 
the objectionable word can be dropped entirely. It is the 
metal in its native state that is docile to treatment. 

8. ^^ Where cemented ground is handled, ample provi- 
sion must be made for breaking up the gravel and sepa- 
rating the values." In the first place you do not break 
gravel up or down; here 'disintegrate' is meant. You do 
not separate the values, except on an accountant's page; 
here it is the gold and platinum that were separated from 
the matrix of gravel. 

9. ''The Broken Hill ore assays 16% lead, 15% zinc, 
and 11 oz. silver. Until a few years ago of these values 
only 65% of the lead and between 45 and 50% of the 
silver was saved." No values are stated. Valuable met- 
als are indicated. By omitting "of these values," the 
statement will be made clearer. 

10. "The ore carries $150 per ton in values." This is 
clumsy. "The ore assays $150 per ton" conveys all that 
is meant, for assays are not usually made for metals hav- 
ing no commercial value. 

In many cases "the values in an ore" is used to express 
the profitable portion of it. Thus, someone "extracts the 
values by the cyanide process." Again, it stands for the 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 49 

relative richness or grade; thus: ^'The values fell off soon 
after the mill was built, ' ' meaning that the grade or tenor 
of the ore declined. The sentence as given is often a 
pathetic fact as well as sad grammar. 

*^The values are in the galena/' meaning that the gold 
or silver is closely associated with the galena, that is, to 
put it plainly, ^Hhe gold is Avith the galena," By drop- 
ping this misuse of value and values we shall clarify tech- 
nical writing. 

Much the same line of criticism can be followed in 
regard to the use of the term strike, as : 

^'The Cresson property reports a strike of high grade 
value from which shipments will be made.'' This is full 
of colloquialisms. The property does not report anything, 
this is done by the superintendent or some other man in a 
position to know. Property is a pretentious synonym for 
mine. Strike is used in mining to indicate a discovery, 
and it is over-worked, for The Evening Post tells of ore- 
strikes, as if the miners might strike an ichthyosaurus; 
they would then strike for higher wages. It is a pity to 
make strike do double duty, for it tends to confusion. 
When you hear that there is ^*a strike at the Bullion 
mine," you are left in doubt whether the men have 
abruptly cancelled their agreement to work or whether 
the miners have broken into a body of rich ore. Strike 
may well be reserved for the first of these meanings; for 
the other service we have many words and phrases, such 
as **cut an orebody," '^ discovered ore," * intersected a 
vein," ''broken into a bonanza," ''found rich ore," 
"penetrated an ore-shoot," and so forth. The use of the 
verb as in "They struck ore," "lie expects to strike oil," 
is preferable to the employment of the noun, as in "He 



50 A GUIDE TO 

made a strike," '* There is news of a rich strike." Used 
thus it is a colloquialism, and while colloquialisms may 
by usage become legitimatized, it is safe to say that the 
only reason for employing them is the fact that they do 
the duty no other words can perform as well. If a 
colloquialism can be avoided, it should be; and if the 
colloquial use of a word makes for confusion by reason of 
other legitimate uses, it is well to forbear. Strike is the 
compass course of a line and is so used in mining geology 
and surveying; that is its proper technical service. In 
economics, it signifies the rupture of relations between an 
employer and his employees. These two usages do not 
conflict; they suffice; let us not overwork our terms, lest 
they fail to carry our meaning. 

Returning to the quotation: It was a ^^ strike of high 
grade value," meaning a ^discovery' of rich ore or a *find' 
of valuable ore. High-grade should be hyphenated. Then 
it is said that shipments will be made from ^Hhe strike 
of high grade value." This is an arithmetical exercise, 
for only in mathematics can you transfer high-grade 
values. The whole sentence, interpreted into plain Eng- 
lish, means: ^^It is reported from the Cresson mine that 
rich ore has been found and that shipments will be made 
shortly." Of course, the shipments must be made soon; 
if not, the reference to shipments is unnecessary ; ore once 
discovered is not supposed to lie in the ground indefi- 
nitely. So the statement may well be abbreviated to : 
^^It is reported that rich ore has been found in the Cres- 
son mine." 

Orebodies and lodes are often described as permanent, 
meaning thereby persistent or continuous. For example : 

1. ''The ore deposit is of a permanent character." 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 51 

2. ^'The officials of the company feel confident that it 
is a permanent vein/' 

3. ''Gash veins are short-lived, but a true fissure vein 
is usually permanent. ' ' 

The only way to make an orebody permanent is to leave 
it in the ground ; the whole trend of mining is to destroy 
the permanence of aggregations of ore, to break them, to 
remove them, and to treat them so that a part, as bullion, 
goes to the mint or to the manufacturer, while the remain- 
der disappears into the creek that receives the tailing 
from the mill or the slag from the smelter. 



The lack of a classical education leads many scientific 
men into vulgar blunders. For instance, in Science, the 
official organ of the cult in America, there appeared re- 
cently such statements as that ''the underlying strata was 
a soft limestone,'' and that "this phenomena was closely 
observed by us, ' ' and that ' ' we owe this data to the cour- 
tesy of Mr. . " No wonder that Professor Hilgard 

remarks that the restriction of the scientific curriculum 
to the limited language-study of the high-schools is yield- 
ing unfortunate results. 

Sainte-Beuve said of Napoleon, and Matthew Arnold 
of General Grant, that clear-cut thinking is indispensable 
to the best writing. 



52 ' A GUIDE TO 

UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES. 

Very. — This unpretentious little word is worked to 
death, like the donkeys of a mining camp, which are 
apt to be hidden under a big load of lumber or other 
supplies. Nine times out of ten very can be omitted 
without loss, because it serves only to increase the num- 
ber of words. 

Very pre-supposes a comparison. A four-story brick 
building is very large to those who live at Salmon City, 
Idaho, and it may there do glory to the name of a former 
senator, but it is as nothing to those who live among the 
* skyscrapers ' of New York. A mine with a 1000-f t. shaft 
is very deep to the scribe who writes on the Weekly Howl 
in a new camp in southern Nevada, but it is shallow com- 
pared with the openings on the Comstock lode. A vein 
that is ten feet across is very wide as seen at Cripple 
Creek, but it is a thin seam to a man who is working in 
the Homestake mine. It is all a matter of comparison, 
and unless your reader knows your standard, the very 
possesses no significance. 

When a man says that ''the ore of the Great Wildcat 
Extended mine is very rich,'' it depends upon what his 
ideas of rich ore happen to be. On the Mother Lode in 
California 15 dwt. ore is very rich; at Goldfield, in Ne- 
vada, such stuff is low-grade. If you do not know the 
writer's notion of richness, his very is wasted. 

Or again, someone writes: *'The district is very pros- 
perous, there being many very rich mines, some of which 
are very deep and very extensive, so that there is a very 
good hope of very many years of very successful develop- 
ment." It is a debauch of emphasis, and all of it is 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 53 

wasted unless you know the writer's standard of pros- 
perity, richness, depth, extent, and so forth. Cut out 
each very and the sentence will lose nothing. 

There is an air of exaggeration about statements bur- 
dened with a frequent very; on the contrary, there is a 
suggestion of moderation and assured knowledge in the 
descriptions that convey ideas of relation without a re- 
peated lashing of that little word. Out of ten verys, nine 
can be dropped without affecting a statement, save to 
strengthen it. 

Occasionally the effort to emphasize defeats itself, thus : 

1. ''This machine makes a very perfect separation of 
the mineral from the gangue." 

2. ''It is very obvious that the mine is well worth the 
price asked.'' 

In both these cases the very weakens the force of the 
statement, instead of reinforcing it, for a perfect separa- 
tion cannot be bettered; it is apparent that if the writer 
means anything, he means that the separation is almost 
perfect. In the second case, a thing is obvious or it is 
not; it can neither be more obvious nor almost obvious; 
from the unnecessary emphasis we are led to suspect that 
it was not wholly obvious that "the mine was well worth 
the price." 

When a nurse tells a fairy story to a child, she will 
use many verys, which fall on the imagination of the 
child like a hailstorm on a flower-bed. The excessive 
use of very is childish ; it makes a constant call for exag- 
geration. It becomes wearisome. If the reader will 
apply the test to the average writing of the day, he will 
find little is lost by omitting very, and much, though not 
'very much,' may be gained thereby. 



54 A GUIDE TO 

Other adjectives that are bullied in the same way by 
redundant adverbs are straight, vertical, unique. 

''A very straight tunnel into the mountain." 

"The vein is very vertical." 

''A very unique child, said I." 

**A rather unique gathering of our profession." 

A thing is either unique or it is not, there is no degree 
of uniqueness. So also a thing is vertical or it is not ; it 
is straight or it is crooked. Fortunately, there are a few 
words the meaning of which is unassailable. 

Somewhat and Probably. — Anyone who hopes to write 
well had better begin by adjuring somewhat. It will also 
be well for writers to deny themselves the frequent use 
of qualifying adverbs, such as perhaps, about, probably, 
and rather. As has been said by an authority, this "in- 
temperate orgy of moderation" amounts to a disease, 
especially among British writers. 

1. "A sampling plant was built perhaps five years 
ago." 

2. "A somewhat important development is announced 
from El Oro. " 

3. "The designs for an installation of any consider- 
able magnitude should not be approved until," and so 
forth. 

4. "The lode is probably about ten feet wide." 

5. "The quartz is rather hard and the walls are very 
straight." 

6. "He uses a solution of about 2 per cent cyanide, 
which is perhaps sufficiently strong." 

7. "The mine is about two miles from the town." 

8. "On the whole it is perhaps the largest property in 
the district." 



I 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 55 

9. ^'It is rather rare to see such a rich vein." 
These examples will suffice; it is indeed an orgy of 
moderation. In every case the qualifying adverb is a 
mere frill, and can be dropped without loss of meaning. 
It reminds one of the custom that once obtained, among 
the managers for English mining companies, of initialing 
a statement of accounts and of adding *'E. & 0. E., " 
which stood for *' Errors and omissions excepted." So 
every statement is subject to error, for is it not human 
to err? The qualifying adverb does not shift the respon- 
sibility, it only burdens the sentence. For instance, in 
No. 4, a man says the lode is *^ about ten feet wide"; we 
know well enough that the width of a lode varies from 
point to point, and that it may be 9^/2 ft. in one place 
and 11% ft. in another, so that the general statement 
that ''it is 10 ft." expresses the fact; if you are speaking 
of a particular measurement at a specific spot it is better 
to say 10 ft. 3 in. or 9 ft. 9 in., than to use the qualifying 
about. It is an unscientific mode of expression; you 
know the width is ten feet or you don 't ; if you do know 
it, say SO; if you don't, say what you do know. In the 
same way, in regard to the distance of the mine from the 
town (quoted in No. 7), to say that it is "about two 
miles" will not absolve you from error if it proves to be 
three miles, and as an attempt at accuracy it is but a 
pseudomorph, because the distance will depend upon 
which road you take. Moreover, in practical life, the 
exact distance is less important than the condition of 
the road ; a four-mile haul over a good road will be less 
expensive than a two-mile haul over a bad one. Be accu- 
rate ; don't merely affect it. A man who says ''the lode 
is about ten feet wide" and "the vein is rntlitM* li.ird" 



56 A GUIDE TO 

and ^'the ore is probably free-milling," is likely to state 
that it contains two ounces of gold per ton when on an 
average it carries only 10 dwt., and to estimate his ore 
reserves 100% too high. 

The Unnecessary Plural. — A bad habit, which is be- 
coming steadily worse, is the squandering of the plural. 
Writers speak of ^^the ores" of a mine and *Hhe rocks" 
in which the lode occurs, when they have no idea of a 
variety or a number of either the one or the other. 
Slimes, concentrates, fines, tailings, and sands are all 
terms that are used by some people only in their plural 
form. It is a Mormonism of style. And apart from its 
incorrectness, it causes the loss of a useful inflection. If 
a mill produces more than one kind of * concentrate' or a 
mine several varieties of ^ore,' it is possible to suggest 
the fact by the employment of the plural. Moreover, the 
excessive sibilant is unpleasant in compounding, as in 
^ slimes-plant, ' ' sands-vat, ' ' tailings-sump. ' 

A concentrate is the product of a process of concentra- 
tion; if several such products are formed (as happens 
occasionally), they are correctly known as concentrates. 

A tailing is the refuse trom a metallurgical process; if 
the refuse from several processes or more than one mill 
should meet, the result could be described as tailings. 

Many writers appear to be unaware that concentrate 
and tailing are dictionary words, for they use only the 
plural forms. 

Thus: ^'The gravels rest upon the older schists of the 
region." But it was of a particular deposit of gravel 
that the writer of this sentence was telling, and the ** older 
schists" stood for one particular formation of schist. The 
two unnecessary plurals only befog the meaning, which 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 57 

is that ^'the gravel rests upon the older schist of the 
region." 

The stuff that goes through a screen can be divided 
into * coarse' and ^fine'; there is no need to pluralize 
the second into ^ fines, ' any more than there is to put the 
first in the uncomfortable position of 'coarses.' 

Occasionally the loss of the plural will seriously ham- 
per the expression of an idea, thus: ^^An experiment was 
made on two sands having the following analysis. (Then 
came the analysis.) Which of these two sands is the 
finest r' Incidentally, ^'finest" should be 'finer.' Or 
again, ''As at El Oro, one can calculate exactly the ex- 
traction from a sand when the sizing test has been made." 
Now try to express the distinctions made in these sen- 
tences by the use of the plural only. Surely it is unschol- 
arly, and therefore unscientific also, to throw away a 
grammatical inflection of so elementary a nature. It will 
be found that loose writers, that is, those who do not 
think clearly and therefore are willing to write muddily, 
will scatter their plurals in every direction ; in this there 
is a profuseness that is in keeping with the exaggerations 
of irresponsible journalism. It is another example of the 
choice of the abstract for the concrete, a blunder that 
marks the unscholarly writer. 

Per cent should be used only as a term of precision 
and when accompanied by an exact statement of quan- 
tity. Thus: "In treating this gravel an abundance of 
water is necessary, otherwise a great per cent of the gold 
will be lost." Here it is used in a vague manner, and 
the word part or portion would be more appropriate. 

"But this class forms only a small percentage of the 
young men of this community." No percentage is given, 



58 A GUIDE TO 

the statement is vague, and the word proportion should 
be substituted for percentage. 

Excepting is often used in place of except, as: ''Your 
definition is correct, excepting that you do not go far 
enough. ' ' 

Similarly, partially is used where partly is required. 
' ' The vat was partially filled. ' ' Partially means with par- 
tiality, and it should never be used without considering 
the claims of partly. These errors, like the use of ''ex- 
perimentalize ' ' in place of experiment, of ' ' preventative ' ' 
for preventive, are evidence of an effort to be impressive 
by using long words. 

"Consistency is a jewel,'' but consistence is a quality 
belonging to molasses in a jug or to the slime in a cyanide 
vat. 

'Suppositious' is a common error for supposititious. 

Approximate and approximately are used too often as 
an elegant variation on about^ as "He is approximately 
90 years old." 

Series is employed instead of number, even when there 
is no succession or connection between the events or 
objects mentioned, as "A*series of scattered orebodies in 
the limestone." 

There is a tendency to use it too much. Whenever at 
a loss for either a nominative or an objective, the scrib- 
bler throws an it into his sentence. Thus: "By the 
arrangement shown the centre of gravity will be low, and 
it leaves a compartment at one end." The "centre of 
gravity" leaves no compartment, the "arrangement" 
does so. We might say: "Ry the arrangement shown the 
centre of gravity is placed low, and a compartment is 
left at one end." 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 59 

A similar criticism may be made in regard to the exces- 
sive employment of them and their. Thus : ' ' Iron poles 
are to be avoided on account of the danger to linemen 
and their short life due to rusting. ' ' The linemen are not 
short-lived; and, though eventually they die, they do not 
rust; it is the iron of the poles that oxidizes. 

^'The slime from the mill is treated in a second plant 
and its contents are cyanided at a small expense." From 
this the reader might infer that the contents of the sec- 
ondary plant were subjected to cyanidation. 

Referring to limestone rocks, a writer says: '^In the 
residual clays left by their dissolution the farmers fre- 
quently make low wages by gophering after the liberated 
lead." The farmers did not undergo dissolution, other- 
wise they would not have been able to go for the lead. 



60 A GUIDE TO 



CONCERNING TITLES. 



The title Mr. means nothing. There was a time when 
master or mister was a specific title of honor. It is so no 
longer. Similarly, squire denoted a shield-man or attend- 
ant on a knight. In England it is the custom to address 
a letter to your grocer as Mr. Henry Smith, but to address 
a letter to your friend as Henry Smith Esq. In America 
Esq. is used by a few people at Boston, but elswhere it is 
rare. Squire and Esq. are verbal derelicts of the feudal 
system and they possess historic interest, but they have 
nearly passed out of use. In America it is as correct to 
write to Mr. Eoosevelt (in his private capacity*) as plain 
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, as it is to write Mr. Henry Smith 
when you send your grocer his check in payment of the 
month's account. In England they still distinguish be- 
tween amateurs and professionals by prefixing Mr. to the 
first and omitting it before the names of the second, so 
that you read of a cricket match in which Mr. Henry 
O'Brien bowled Jones. The latter did not lose his pro- 
nomen nor his title of Mr. because he was bowled but 
because he was a professional, the bowler (Mr. O'Brien) 
being an amateur. In cricket the adoption of this style 
has its convenience but, nevertheless, it is a humorous 
survival of a class distinction. In America the class dis- 
tinction is gone, and so is that between the amateur and 
the professional ; here amateurs are scarce, for we make 
a business out of sport ; also we have no class distinctions, 
only differences of bank balances. 

♦In writing to the President officially, it is correct to address the 
envelope "To The President. The White House. Washington, D. C," 
and to begin the communication thus: "The President: Sir — ." 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 61 

Therefore Mr. is meaningless and in technical writing 
it can be largely omitted. As a matter of taste it is pref- 
erable, and as a matter of accuracy it is better, to use 
the initials or the first name. Thus: ''The engineer in 
charge of construction is C. E. Palmer'' is better than 
writing that he was Mr. Palmer. At the second reference, 
it is usual to omit the initials and to say Mr. Palmer, 
as in ordinary conversation. 

Never prefix Mr. or any other title to the names of the 
dead, that is the worst snobbery of all. Thus: ''In the 
death of Kelvin, England lost a great investigator." "By 
the death of Charles A. Molson, the mining profession lost 
one of its leading members." To put Lord before the 
immortal dead is bathos and to place Mr. before the name 
of a vanished personality is like bowing to a mummy. 

Then we come to the use of such titles as Professor and 
Doctor, with their abbreviations Prof, and Dr. In Eng- 
land only a physician is addressed as Doctor. Surgeons, 
veterinaries, and dentists are denied the privilege. So 
far so funny, but the custom mentioned has not prevented 
doctors of divinity and doctors of science from taking to 
themselves the title usually associated with the healing 
art. In America, it is chaos ; the titles Professor and Doc- 
tor are employed so loosely that they are well-nigh mean- 
ingless. For my part I cannot see why a Master of Arts 
should not be addressed as Master if a Doctor of Philo- 
sophy is entitled to be called Doctor. Moreover, in the 
West, an Attorney General is usually called General and 
a Surveyor General is easily mistaken for a military chief- 
tain of the highest rank. They are as much generals as 
the general dealer in merchandise or the man who has 
general supervision of street construction. In Kentucky 



62 



A GUIDE TO 



every gentleman is a colonel, at Washington every scien- 
tist is a doctor; in fact, my friends of the United States 
Geological Survey will, I trust, not be offended if I say 
that it is apparent, from official sources of news, that the 
chiefs are Doctors, the seconds in command are Profess- 
ors, and the chain-bearers are plain Misters. One of the 
worst sinners in this regard is Science, the organ of the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science. 
The editor of that weekly magazine bestows his accolade 
with rare impartiality and gives degrees with unrestrained 
generosity. Lately, the list of contents gave the names of 
a Professor who was not — and never had been — a pro- 
fessor ; of a Doctor, who was an M.A. and not a Ph.D. ; of 
a Mr. who had won a Ph.D. from Columbia. The grada- 
tion of title merely expressed the editor's sense of the 
degree of courtesy it was proper to pay the several writ- 
ers. Of course, such misuse of title is grotesque. We love 
to call some of the veterans * Doctor,' for they got their 
Ph.D. at a time and at a place where the honor meant 
something; nowadays every little college grants doc- 
torates, so that they have no significance unless the name 
of the grantor university is affixed. I remember a friend 
of mine in Colorado who was given an honorary Ph.D. by 
the State University because he was the promoter of a 
paper mill and other useful local enterprises, and my 
friend valued the honor chiefly because it made him eli- 
gible for the University Club at Denver. Furthermore, a 
doctorate does not indicate even the same degree, for Dr. 
Edward D. Peters and Dr. F. L. Bosqui are graduated 
physicians, although both have become authorities in 
metallurgy; they are not doctors of philosophy, as might 
be inferred. As to professor, that title belongs first to 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 63 

the peripatetic corn-doctor and next to the instructor in 
dancing. At Harvard the professors are addressed as 
Mr., and the unnecessary use of Professor in addressing 
lecturers is deemed provincial. 

In a democracy there is no rank outside of the army 
and the navy, and among civilians good taste dictates the 
minimum use of titles. The true American has no supe- 
rior, and no inferior. In Europe titles express positions, 
class distinctions, and social courtesies, and they form a 
part of the old-world customs; they have historic war- 
rant. In America, they are solecisms. Therefore avoid 
the use of the prefixes Dr. and Prof. Say : Mr. C. R. Van 
Hise and not Dr. Van Hise; Mr. S. F. Emmons and not 
Prof. Emmons. 

The following are examples of correct usage : 

^^Mr. James F. Kemp, professor of geology in Columbia 
University. ' ' 

'^He graduated from Cornell University." 

''In deference to the wishes of Mr. S. B. Christy, the 
dean of the mining department of the University of Cali- 
fornia. " 

If it is desirable to state the fact that a scientific writer 
has had a doctorate conferred upon him or has held a 
professorship, then say it thus: ''Richard Pearce, Ph.D., 
Columbia." "Courtenay De Kalb was formerly professor 
of metallurgy in the School of Mines of Missouri." 

When you refer to persons bearing foreign titles, be 
careful to be correct, for to a foreigner they mean much 
and to be careless is either to be discourteous or to confess 
your ignorance. Thus, in speaking of an English knight 
or baronet, you speak of him as Sir John Smith, and at 
the subsequent reference you speak of him as Sir John. 



64 



A GUIDE TO 



In England the prefix * Honourable' indicates that the 
bearer of it is the son of a peer, while ^ Right Hon- 
ourable' signifies that he is a member of the Privy 
Council. These quaint old customs have historic war- 
rant and mean something in a country of anachron- 
isms, however curious they may seem to an American. In 
a democracy we have no titles Save those of the army and 
the navy, because only in the naval and military services 
is precedence recognized. The Kentucky Colonel will 
forfeit his title promptly when his purse is inadequate to 
the tips demanded by his honorary rank. The Attorney 
General of California, who is hailed as General, has no 
more precedence than the general grocer, to whose class 
etymologically he belongs. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 65 

MATTERS OP USAGE. 

The split infinitive is not always avoidable ; occasionally 
it serves to convey a special meaning. Avoid it if you can. 

The omission of the definite article (the) before foreign 
names commencing with the definite article (Le, La, II) 
recommends itself on the score of repetition, but it is 
likely to cause confusion. The French or Spanish article 
joined to another word is as much a part of the name as 
the noun itself, thus: ^^We have something interesting 
to show you in the Mexico mine and also in the El Oro" 
is clear, but the omission of the article before El Oro 
would suggest that there was *' something interesting" in 
the district of El Oro, in which the El Oro mine is sit- 
uated. Even in Spanish, one would say "el distrito de El 
Oro^^ or "la mina El Oro,^^ not "la mina Oro^^ or "el dis- 
trito de Oro,^^ So also we speak of *'the La Rose mine" 
at Cobalt and "the Le Roi mine" at Rossland, and even 
**the Las Dos Estrellas mine" at El Oro. 

Preposition Verbs. — The use of prepositions with verbs, 
and the consequent ending of a sentence with an insig- 
nificant word, is a defect peculiarly British, although not 
unknown on this side of the Atlantic. For example : 

1. ''The finest mine I met with in my travels." 

2. ''No large body of payable ore has been met with." 

3. "At that time it was intended to sink a shaft along 
the drive at a place where the new make of stone had 
come in." 

4. "The shares are being dealt in at a large premium." 

5. "A road has been reported on as practicable." 

6. "All but 200 tons was operated on in Pahang." 



66 A GUIDE TO 

7. ''The slime separated makes up a capacity of 500 
tons per day." 

8. ''This is true in dividing up geological time/' 

9. ''The influence of the old views has so clung on 
that the tendency has been to give up the idea of time." 

10. "The vein has been cut, and new men will be put 
on to drift on it." 

11. "The vein is split up into stringers." 

12. "The disturbance tilted up the strata." 

13. "End bearers 12 by 12 in. let in 16 in. into each 
wall." 

14. "The ore is fed in at the curved end." 

15. "The weak solution is turned on at first." 
Many other examples might be quoted of the use of 

let in, stop up, come in, carry on, make up, fold in, split 
up, open up, fill up, pour in, empty out, start up, close 
down, cave in, and so forth. 

It will be noted that usually the preposition forming 
part of the verb is followed immediately by another prepo- 
sition ; this is ngly. Moreover, while in speaking, the verb 
and its preposition may be held together so as to effect a 
separation from the following preposition, in writing this 
is not indicated. We do not write : ' ' The finest mine I met- 
with in my travels," but we space the words equally, so 
that it might be read: "The finest mine I met with-in my 
travels. ' ' In German such verbs are frankly compounded, 
and if they are to be used in English it might be well to 
hyphenate them, but it would be better still to avoid the 
use of them altogether. 

It was ' ' the finest mine he saw ' ' that he meant ; he did 
not meet the mine, nor did the mine come forth to meet 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 67 

him. Similarly, in the second example 'intersected' or 
'found' would serve. 

The third quotation is obviously Australian, for 'make 
of stone' betrays its origin, even if 'drive' (meaning 
'drift') did not do so. In this case the new orebody had 
been 'cut' or 'exposed.' 

The fourth is often to be read in financial papers; it 
can be circumvented by saying : ' ' There were dealings in 
the shares at a large premium." 

So also the fifth and sixth are common; we read that 
a mine has been reported on, etc. Why not say: "A re- 
port on the mine has been made." 

In the seventh makes up should be 'constitutes' or 
' forms. ' 

In the eighth, the preposition can be dropped, while in 
the next quotation both prepositions have some value and 
it is rash to suggest an improvement. We might say that 
"The influence of the old views has clung to geology so 
that the tendency is to abandon the idea of time. ' ' 

In the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth the prepositions are 
redundant. In the thirteenth the confusion between the 
preposition in and the abbreviated form of 'inches,' is 
awkward. 'Projecting' into the wall or 'inserted' into 
it might express the meaning. 

As to the fourteenth, evidently the ore is not fed out; 
the in is not needed. This is like upraise, which is found 
in some mine reports, as though anyone raised downward. 
In the fifteenth example turned on must be left as it is, 
with the ugly second preposition following it, or another 
phrase must be used. Turn on and turn off, as meaning 
to start or stop the flow (as in this case, of a solution), 
are required in technical writing because we have no 



68 



A GUIDE TO 



equivalent that will do duty for them. It is not intended 
to state that all these preposition-verbs can be dispensed 
with, but it is suggested that certain ungainly sentences 
can be modified to advantage by avoiding the use of 
them. 

^^The visiting engineer should be put up by the owner 
of the mine on the property." An Anglicism; a man is 
'put up' when he is entertained, and if the hospitality is 
inadequate he must put up with it as best he can. 

**Upon the melting down of the charge.'' How does 
this differ from the melting up? Many metallurgists prefer 
the latter, although the first suggests the subsidence that 
follows liquefaction of fragments. Neither preposition 
is necessary. 

A mill is started up and then is closed down. In these 
cases the preposition gives added force and is excusable, 
though unnecessary and ugly. On the Rand the white 
men 'boss up' the coolies. We learn that ''with the large 
machines almost half of the time was taken up in putting 
up and taking down.*' It reads like an obstacle race. 

' ' The velocity of the escaping gases is too great to per- 
mit of the settling out of the finest particles." If the 
particles settle, they settle; that is enough. Of course, 
there are people who settle down in the country because 
they cannot settle up their debts in the city, but that is 
neither here nor there. 

It is worth remarking that so clever a book as 'The 
King's English,' which offers an effective criticism of rep- 
resentative English writers, is guilty of the following 
sentences: "It is insulting to the reader, implying that 
he was not worth working out the sentence for before it 
was put down." After such a performance we venture 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 69 

to express opposition to their approval of the termina- 
tion of a sentence with an unimportant word, as will hap- 
pen often when these preposition-verbs are employed. 

A Western miner, who has overslept, will say that he 
has * slept in,' and after he has been to the boarding-house 
he will state that he is ^fuU up.' A little later he will 'hide 
out' from the foreman by 'climbing up' into an 'upraise.' 
Why should we perpetuate the lingo of the illiterate? 
The miner has much to teach us, especially how to find ore 
and how best to extract it, but the selection of terms or 
the use of language is not his province, and he does not 
thank you for putting him in a false position. 

In speaking or writing concerning technical matters, 
it will be found that there is an insistent multitude of 
preposition-verbs. If note is taken of their clumsiness 
and of the awkward sentences produced by the use of 
them, it is likely that they will be avoided. It is easy to 
do so. Try a re-arrangement of the sentence or a substi- 
tution of terms. It is good practice. 

Most preposition verbs can be replaced advantageously 
by plain verbs ; for example : 



carry out 


perform 


look after 


watch 


fall off 


decline 


prove up 


test 


keep up 


maintain 


make up 


compose 


aim at 


attain 


go on 


advance 


work out 


develop 



Tautology. — "The shaft is being sunk deeper." A shaft 
must be sunk deeper, if it is sunk at all. 



70 . A GUIDE TO 

*'The men on that shift drove the drift forward four 
feet. ' ' They would not be likely to drive it backward or 
even laterally, for then it would become a cross-cut. 

'*It is radically wrong in its inception from the start." 
Words, mere words. Those that are indicated are not 
needed. 

^*The manager began cross-cutting at shallow depths." 
If shallow, then not deep. Why not say where the mana- 
ger did the cross-cutting? On which level? How far 
from the surface? 

Payable means due as to payment or capable of being 
discharged by payment. It is used in mining as a syno- 
nym for profitable. The ore does not pay nor is it able 
to pay what is unpaid and due ; the use of the word is to 
be condemned, for it was introduced by illiterate persons 
and is a blunder. We do not need payable ; use profitable. 
Pay-ore is now a recognized technical term and is out of 
the reach of a protest. 

It is better to say 20 ft. wide than 20 ft. in width. 
Similarly, 10 ft. long is preferable to 10 ft. in length. Ex- 
cept when not preceded by a number, as: '^The orebody 
has increased in length as the mine has been deepened." 
Or : *^This vat differs in breadth from the other." 

The latter is employed in a confusing way; sometimes 
it is used where last is required. Thus: **I am using 18% 
coke on the charge and I may get to 17 or even 16%. The 
latter figure I hope to reach." Here there are three per- 
centages ; he means the last of them. 

''Of these three main ore deposits, the Winthrop, the 
Rising Star and the Bully Hill, only the latter is associ- 
ated with the diabase." A comma is needed after Star; 
and latter, referring to the last of three, should be last. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 71 

^*The gangue minerals consist of calcite, quartz, dolo- 
mite, gypsum, and calamine, native silver occurring in 
vugs of the latter. ' ' Occur is overdone by many writers. 
Latter should be last. As gangue consists of minerals, 
necessarily, the use of ^ minerals^ is undesirable. 

The Indefinite Pronoun. — As a rule, educated English- 
men use their own language skillfully, because they re- 
ceive instruction in grammar while at school, and they are 
not in a hurry. Nevertheless, they have two peculiar 
faults. One of these is the use of preposition-verbs, as 
already mentioned; the other is the frequent employment 
of the indefinite pronoun one, as in : 

**One would not be inclined to believe such a state- 
ment." 

In some instances it becomes almost an obsession, as in 
the case of a man with whom I discussed the future of the 
Royal School of Mines. He said something like this: 
''Looking at the subject broadly, one would suppose that 
the Government would give better support to the plan, 
for one can see no reason why they should not do so ; and 
certainly one has a right to expect something in behalf 
of so important an institution; but in matters like these 
one almost despairs of one's countrymen." It is a sort 
of mock-modesty, an exaggerated effort to avoid egotism 
and self-assertion. It may be that those of us who live 
in America are a bit too assertive, but at least we know 
our own minds and are willing to accept the responsibility 
for the statements we make, instead of fathering them 
upon a shadowy something that masquerades in the garb 
of a shamefaced pronoun. Examples of this peculiarly 
British habit are easy to obtain ; here is one from a book 
(and a good book too) by H. G. Wells; speaking of the 



72 A GUIDE TO 

dispersal of population by reason of improved locomo- 
tion, he says: 

^'The towns one inferred, therefore, would get slacker, 
more diffused, the country-side more urban. From that, 
from the spatial widening of personal interests that ensued, 
one could infer certain changes in the spirits of local poli- 
tics, so one went on to a number of fairly valid adumbra- 
tions. Then again starting from the practical supercession 
of all unskilled labor by machinery one can work out with 
a pretty fair certainty many coming social developments, 
and the broad trend of one group of influences at least." 
And so he proceeds. Now, it happens that he is referring 
to his own opinions as expressed in a book previously 
published, and it is no indefinite person or public opinion 
or a debating society, but H. G. Wells, that is supposing 
and suggesting these interesting things. Put the first 
pronoun singular, the aggressive I, in the place of one 
and the whole statement gains vigor and an additional 
meaning, for these are his ideas, the ideas of a particular 
social philosopher and not of a chimera ruminating in a 
vacuum. 

In the quotation from Wells, it will be noted that the 
numeral one occurs in the same sentence as the pronoun 
one; this is awkward. So also is the uncertainty as to 
whether one should be followed by a singular or plural 
pronoun. For instance : 

*^ People here know that this kind of speculation gives 
one a run for their money." Their should be one's, but 
even that is awkward. Get rid of the one. 

Of course, egotism is to be deprecated and the iteration 
of the first person singular is tiresome, but in technical 
writing, where definite statements are made by a specific 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 73 

observer and personal investigations are recorded by indi- 
viduals, it is a mere pretence of modesty to use these ele- 
gant variations. It detracts from the vividness of a state- 
ment without lessening the responsibility for it, and often 
it results in awkward circumlocution. The use of writer 
is also open to objections that far outweigh any consid- 
erations of taste or modesty ; it may be properly regarded 
as an affectation that interferes with clearness of expres- 
sion. 

'*The geology of the district is more complex than it 
has been described by Mr. Turner. The writer has dis- 
cussed the subject in a bulletin, etc.'' Here the writer 
appears to refer to Mr. Turner, but it stands for his critic, 
the author of the above paragraph. By changing the last 
sentence to *'I have discussed the subject, etc," the mean- 
ing is made clear. Sacrifice elegance, even modesty, to 
directness of statement. Remember the reader. 



74 A GUIDE TO 

RELATIVE PRONOUNS. 

Most writers employ that as an agreeable variation 
from the too frequent use of who and which; they regard 
that as interchangeable with the two other relative pro- 
nouns and make euphony the sole arbiter of their choice. 
However, among the helps to clear expression I include 
the proper use of these three relative pronouns. The neg- 
lect to distinguish between the functions peculiar to them 
severally is an error common to technical, as to ordinary, 
literature. 

A relative clause is introduced by a relative pronoun; 
it has a subject and predicate of its own, and refers to, 
describes, or limits a previous word. The word or group 
of words to which a relative pronoun refers is called its 
'antecedent'; as in the sentence **He in whom we trust," 
where **He" is the antecedent described by the clause 
''in whom we trust." 

The relative pronouns serve as reference-words and 
connectives. Who, with its possessive whose and its 
objective whom, is both singular and plural. It refers 
to living things, usually persons, sometimes animals. By 
poetic license inanimate objects may be personified, so 
that we may speak of "the city whose future is assured." 
But it is not well to say: ''The stamp whose descent on 
the die crushes the ore." It will be more correct to sub- 
stitute of which and say "The stamp, the descent of 
which on the die, etc." This is correct; but it is awk- 
ward, which is a hint to reconstruct the sentence and omit 
the relative pronoun, thus: "The stamp, by descending 
upon the die, crushes the ore upon it" or "The stamp falls 
upon the die so as to crush the ore." 



TECHNICAL WRITING. . 75 

When in doubt, rebuild your sentence. 

What always refers to things, never to persons. The 
antecedent to what is not expressed. Thus: ^'What 
will happen, no man can foretell.'' 

Which is not inflected. It refers, with rare exceptions, 
to things only. That also is not inflected, it refers either 
to persons or things. 

The main problem is the distinction between that on 
the one hand and who or which on the other. Gramma- 
rians and writers differ as regards the restrictive func- 
tion of these relative pronouns. Thus: *^The friends that 
I loved are dead" seems better than ^'The friends whom I 
loved, ' ' for it is the beloved friends as distinguished from 
ordinary friends that are dead. You say *^The father 
whom I loved is dead," rather than *^The father that I 
loved," because a man has only one father and the use of 
the term is sufficiently restrictive. 

A useful rule for the use of that and which is given by 
Professor Bain and quoted by Edwin A. Abbott in his 
invaluable guidebook called *How to Write Clearly.' It 
is : * * When using the relative pronoun, use who and which 
where the meaning is ^and he,' *and it,' etc., *for he,' 
*for it,' etc. In other cases use that, if euphony allows." 

Thus: ^^I heard this from the mine manager, who (and 
he) heard it from the man that was in charge of the 
work." 

Abbott also says: ^^Who and which introduce a new 
fact about the antecedent, whereas that introduces some- 
thing without which the antecedent is incomplete or unde- 
fined. Thus, in the above example, **mine manager" is 
complete in itself, and who introduces a new fact about 



76 . A GUIDE TO 

him; *^man" is incomplete, and requires ^^that was in 
charge of the work ' ' to complete the meaning. 

Let us go into the matter a little deeper; but before 
venturing upon controversial ground, I shall state one 
safe guide to lucid diction, namely, whenever a sentence 
appears doubtful in the light of a rule, it is likely that the 
sentence (not the rule) needs changing. Grajnmar was 
made for man, and not man for grammar. 

Relative clauses are divisible into defining and non- 
defining; the function of the first is to limit the antece- 
dent, this limitation being effected in several ways. In 
whichever way the defining clause does its work, it is 
essential to, and inseparable from, the antecedent. By 
this test it can be distinguished. Thus: ^'The process 
which will extract both the metals is likely to be 
adopted." In this case ''will extract both the metals" is 
the relative clause introduced by which. The antecedent 
is ''the process." The clause limits the kind of process 
referred to, by stating that it "will extract both the met- 
als"; therefore, it is a defining clause and should be pre- 
ceded by that. The sentence is better thus : ' ' The process 
that will extract both the metals is likely to be adopted." 

"The process, which is of recent invention, extracts 
both the gold and silver at a cost of 50 cents per ton of 
ore." Here the relative clause ("which is of recent inven- 
tion"), introduced by the pronoun which, is non-defining; 
it merely gives a bit of incidental information, leaving it 
to the principal clause to predicate concerning the ante- 
cedent ("the process") that it "extracts both the gold 
and silver at a cost of 50 cents per ton of ore." 

Exceptions will occur. That does not permit direct 
modification by a preposition. We cannot say "The man 




TECHNICAL WRITING. 77 



in that we trusted," although colloquially we may say 
*'The man that we trusted in'' — an awkward clause, end- 
ing with a preposition. To * trust' a man and to 'put your 
trust in' a man express two shades of meaning, of which 
the second is much the stronger. Finally, to serve the 
purpose, we say ''The man in whom we trusted." More- 
over, that is not available for all restrictive clauses, 
for it may make confusion with the conjunction that. 
Thus: "It was clear that that man could be of no service 
to me" or "We noted that the people that composed the 
mob were beside themselves." In both examples an un- 
pleasant collision between the conjunction and the pro- 
noun can readily be avoided by reconstructing the sen- 
tences. In the first, the two thats, if spoken, are differ- 
ently accentuated, but the distinction is lost in the written 
words. 

That when used of persons, has come to look archaic 
and who is preferable, except when the antecedent has 
attached to it a superlative. We say : 

"He is a man who dreams all day." 

But we may say : 

"The most impartial man that I know." 

Let us proceed. The removal of the defining clause 
destroys the meaning of the antecedent. This is a sure 
test for distinguishing the defining from the non-defining 
clause. Thus, in the sentence: "The process that will 
extract both the metals, is likely to be adopted," if the 
clause "that will extract both the metals" be omitted, 
the sentence becomes meaningless, for to say that "the 
process is likely to be adopted" without indicating in 
any way the particular process, would be senseless. In 
the other example: "The process, which is of recent in- 



78 A GUIDE TO 

vention, extracts both the gold and silver in the ore at 
a cost of 50 cents per ton," the non-defining clause 
''which is of recent invention" can be detached without 
interfering with the significance of the principal statement 
that ''the process extracts both the gold and silver, etc." 
Countless processes are *^of recent invention" but only 
special processes will "extract gold and silver at a cost 
of 50 cents per ton of ore. ' ' 

Furthermore, a non-defining clause gives independent 
comment, description, or explanation — anything but limi- 
tation of the antecedent. In the last example, the relative 
clause can be written either as a parenthesis, or as a sepa- 
rate sentence, thus: "The process (which is of recent in- 
vention) extracts, etc." or "The process is of recent inven- 
tion and is said to extract both the gold and silver, etc." 
This cannot be done with the defining clause in the preced- 
ing example without decapitating the sentence, for "the 
process (which will extract both the metals) is likely to be 
adopted" or "the process is likely to be adopted and it 
will extract both the metals" are both badly expressed. 

To ascertain whether a clause does (or does not) define, 
remove it, and it will at once become apparent whether 
it is essential; if it is essential, it defines. Ambiguous 
cases are frequent, because some clauses are capable of per- 
forming either function and an undiscriminating writer 
may fail to make himself understood. The uncertainty, 
as to whether the clause is limiting or descriptive, can be 
obviated by making plain what is the antecedent. Re- 
write the sentence, so that the meaning becomes clear 
beyond peradventure. 

Punctuation should be a guide in most doubtful cases, 
for the non-defining clause ought to be preceded by a 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 79 

comma. But this test is not reliable, simply because 
punctuation is often slighted. This much may be said: 
The information given by a defining clause must be taken 
at once, with the antecedent, or both are useless; while 
the information given by a non-defining clause will keep, 
the clause being complete in sense without the antecedent. 

A few examples will serve to illustrate. The first three 
are taken from one of my own books, written before I 
paid attention to the nicety of these distinctions. 

''A good millman has the clarified common sense which 
lies at the basis of true science.'' Here the last clause 
defines, the reference is to a special kind of common 
sense, namely, the kind that ^4ies at the basis of true 
science." However, in this case no misunderstanding is 
caused by the use of which, the clause carries the mean- 
ing of limitation in either case, and no harm has been 
done. Yet, the sentence is clearer and stronger with a 
that: ^^A good millman has the clarified common sense 
that lies at the basis of true science. ' ' 

'^That interval of time is utilized in the shifting of the 
material which the hammer blows are shaping.'' Here 
which is evidently an elegant variation from that, which 
has been used just before. The antecedent (material) is 
defined by the relative clause, which describes it as the 
particular material undergoing shaping by the action 
of the hammer. Therefore that is required in place of 
which. But, even more certainly, the sentence requires 
change. The that before ^* interval" might well be 
changed to this, for the reference is to an ''interval of 
time" previously discussed. As soon as this is used the 
hankering for euphony is satisfied and the that before 
**the hammer" becomes comfortable. 



80 



A GUIDE TO 



**The hammer which cracks open the nut may liberate 
the kernel without crushing it.'' This also may be 
amended, for the antecedent (hammer) is limited by the 
clause as one that ^ * cracks open the nut. ' ' Therefore that 
is better. Here also no particular harm is done, for the 
meaning is not upset, as it is in the additional examples 
(taken from other authors). 

''The Trail smelter is treating ore from the Sunshine 
mine at a profit which only runs 1.4% in copper, $1.50 in 
gold, and 23 cents in silver. ' ' This says that the ' ' profit ' ' 
runs so much, but it is the ''ore" that contains the metals 
mentioned. The clause introduced by the relative pro- 
noun in this instance is defining and the information 
given must be taken with the antecedent, which is ' ' ore, ' ' 
not ' ' profit. ' ' " At a profit ' ' is incidental and only needed 
for emphasis, since ore is not "treated'' usually except 
"at a profit." Re-arrange the sentence, thus: "The Trail 
smelter is treating, at a profit, ore from the Sunshine mine 
that runs only, etc." Or "The Sunshine mine is sending 
ore to the Trail smelter and this ore yields a profit, al- 
though containing only, etc." 

"There is a singular absence of oxidation in these ore- 
bodies which may be due to the protection afforded by 
the 'drift' which has in the Glacial period mantled the 
whole district." Is the oxidation or are the orebodies 
due to the protection of the 'drift'? It is a mark of the 
non-defining clause that the information it conveys may 
be postponed ; it need not follow immediately on the heels 
of the antecedent. In this case which introduces the clause 
referring to the "oxidation"; therefore it is correct, 
though the sentence is ambiguous. But in the latter part 
of the same sentence there comes another relative clause 



1 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 81 

describing the * drift' and limiting it by stating that it is 
*'the Glacial drift" responsible for the alluvium ''man- 
tling the whole district." There might be other kinds of 
'drift/ formed in other geological periods and distrib- 
uted over parts of the district, but this is not one of 
them ; the clause defines, and the relative pronoun should 
be that. The mere doubt as to the meaning indicates that 
the sentence needs to be re-arranged, as thus : 

"In these orebodies there is a singular absence of oxi- 
dation, which may be due to the protection afforded by 
the 'drift' that mantled the whole district during the 
Glacial period." 

"The law has many defects and contains a number of 
clauses which should be changed as soon as possible." 
There are certain "clauses" requiring change, those that 
are "defective" should be changed; the clause is definitive 
and not incidental. That is preferable to which. 

"The elevation which occurred in Pleistocene time and 
which affected the American river, may have had some 
influence on the Yuba." The question is as to whether 
the writer refers to a particular elevation occurring in 
the Pleistocene period as distinguished from others that 
happened earlier or later. Or does he refer to a soli- 
tary elevation during Pleistocene time? The context 
shows that he is speaking of one out of many elevations 
and that he indicates a particular one occurring at a par- 
ticular period and causing specific geological changes, 
therefore the sentence ought to read: "The elevation that 
occurred in Pleistocene time, etc., may have had some 
influence on the Yuba." The second which (preceding 
"affected") is justified by the first(after" elevation"), and 
the doubtful use of one suggests the advisability of elimi- 



82 A GUIDE TO 

Rating the second by a reconstruction of the sentence. 
When in doubt, re-write your sentence. A doubtful mean- 
ing is much worse than doubtful grammar. The sentence 
may be changed thus: ^*The elevation that affected the 
American river during Pleistocene time may have had 
some effect upon the Yuba also. ' ' 

' ' There is a mine in the downtown district which is in a 
position to furnish large quantities of manganese ore." 
The ' downtown ' is a part of the Leadville district within, 
and adjacent to, the city itself. The question arises: Is 
the ''mine" or the ''district" to furnish the ore? The 
sentence says the latter; other information points to the 
former. The two can be harmonized by employing that. 
Avoid ambiguity and rebuild the sentence, thus: "In 
the downtown district there is a mine that is in a 
position to furnish large quantities of manganese ore." 
The antecedent (mine) calls for definition and marks the 
clause following that as belonging to the limiting kind. 
As re-arranged the meaning of the sentence is unmistak- 
able and even the use of which, though erroneous, would 
not obscure the statement of fact. 

"The manager cut a vein*in the Brooklyn ground which 
was developed at the 800-f t. level. ' ' If the reference is to 
the "ground," then which is correct, but it should be pre- 
ceded by a comma. If the "vein" is referred to, then 
that is required because the clause defines the particular 
vein "in the Brooklyn ground" and "developed at the 
800-f t. level." The context proved that the latter was 
meant. The doubt indicates that the sentence requires 
change. It might be re-written thus: "The manager 
explored the Brooklyn ground and cut the vein that had 
been developed at the 800-ft. level." Which 800-f t. level? 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 83 

It was the 800-ft. level of the mine adjoining the Brook- 
lyn. Let us call it the New York. Then we get at the 
true meaning of this cryptic sentence, thus: **The mana- 
ger did some work in the Brooklyn ground and thereupon 
cut the vein that had been previously explored at the 
800-ft. level of the New York mine, which adjoins." 

Occasionally even when which is correct, it is advis- 
able to substitute the equivalent and it, thus: *^ Ac- 
cording to my tests 58% of the assay-value of the 
ore could be saved by a series of concentrations 
which, owing to the careful adjustments necessary, 
is not always obtainable in every day working of 
the mill.'' This can be improved, for the second sen- 
tence tumbles all over the first so as to confuse the idea 
to be conveyed, like two horses in tandem that want to 
turn round and shake hands with the driver. After the 
word ^* concentrations" put a dash (to express the break 
in the sequence of thought) thus: ^* — and this, owing to 
the careful adjustments necessary, is not always practic- 
able." A further improvement can be made by substi- 
tuting but for the and. Practicable gives the exact intent 
of the eight words for which it is substituted. 

It is interesting to note that this distinction between 
the uses of the relative pronouns is observed in Eliza- 
bethan writers, notably Shakespeare himself. Many mod- 
ern authors disregard it. To technical writers it will be 
found a convenience in attaining lucidity of expression. 

For the sake of euphony, when the conjunction that 
has just been employed or when the antecedent is quali- 
fied by that, it may be necessary to avoid a disagreeable 
repetition of the word. Then use the participle, as '*Men 
working underground" in place of **Men that work 



84 A GUIDE TO 

underground." Or use the infinitive, as ^*He was the 
first manager that succeeded in making the mine profit- 
able'' may be changed to ^^He was the first manager to 
succeed in making, etc. ' ' Similarly, if which is overworked, 
substitute and this; thus: ^^He worked hard, which was 
all that he could do," can be written ^'He worked hard, 
and this was all, etc." Then, if despite these variants, 
the sentence is still overburdened with relative pronouns, 
there is one remedy: Re-write and re-arrange. It is not 
the fault of the language, but yours. 

I am aware that no part of the present writing is so open 
to criticism as this attempt to elucidate the use of the rela- 
tive pronouns. It is likely that in my effort to emphasize 
the neglect of one of them, I shall be charged with undue 
partiality for that and a prejudice against which. The 
attempt to state useful rules may read like an effort to 
establish irrefrangible laws. Our language, so the critic 
will say, has other devices to mark the restrictive clause 
and it is easy to avoid the monotony of an arbitrary rule. 
For instance, the definite article the attached to a noun 
not previously made definite in the context, distinctly 
points forward to the relative clause, or whatever may 
take its place, as a limiting expression. Professor Whit- 
ney says: *'Some authorities hold that who and which are 
to be used as co-ordinating or simply descriptive relatives, 
but that as limiting a descriptive. . . . But the best 
English usage by no means requires such a distinction."* 
Again it may be asserted that ^Hhe relative clause is not 
necessarily of one sort or the other, it is frequently both, 
or hovers delicately on the margin between the two." So 
says Professor Bradley of the University of California. 

♦'Essentials of English Grammar.' Page 77. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 85 

He also argues against any attempt ''to force speech into 
a cast-iron mould in defiance of its chartered freedom of 
ages. Every predication about a thing, no matter what 
its form, logically limits it, defines it, narrows the con- 
cept.'' 

So it is well to go gently. As a matter of fact there 
is no arbiter in such matters, save the reader. Put your- 
self in his place. Use such words as will best enable the 
transfer of thought with least worry to the recipient. In 
some cases you may avoid ambiguity by using that instead 
of which, in other cases that is no better than which and 
only serves as a stumbling block to the transfer of ideas. 
So I apologize if my statements have seemed too arbi- 
trary ; my purpose is simply to stimulate the attention of 
technical writers to some details of their literary mech- 
anism. 

This discussion concerning relative pronouns is worth 
while, if for no other purpose than the light it throws 
on the necessity for re-constructing doubtful sentences. 
Grammar is worthy of respect, euphony is desirable, idiom 
is not to be neglected; but precedence must be given to 
clearness of statement. Sacrifice everything to this at- 
tainment and you will find that you have included most 
of the other qualities. It is seldom necessary to forego 
any of them, for the resources of our language are 
equal to all the demands of exact and felicitous expres- 
sion. Be lucid, and all these other qualities shall be 
yours, as you desire them and practice to attain them. 



86 A GUIDE TO 

EXAMPLES OF JOURNALESE. 

1. *^The strike in the Ophir mine has been demon- 
strated to be of a permanent character." This refers to 
the finding of ore ; the writer means that the lode has been 
proved to be persistent. 

2. **This is no secondary enrichment, it is a permanent 
orebody." Here also permanent is used instead of per- 
sistent or continuous. 

3. **The principal work being prosecuted at this time 
is in the shaft." 

4. *'The Butte & Arizona Co. is prosecuting develop- 
ment work with vigor. ' ' 

5. *^A vigorous campaign of development is being 
prosecuted. ' ' 

Certainly, the writers of these sentences ought ta be 
prosecuted. In the first example, the word 'done' would 
serve the purpose and in the second 'pushing' would suf- 
fice. The third quotation is an example of dispropor- 
tionate language, for it happens to refer to unimportant 
mining operations, and it might have been stated that 
''steps have been taken to develop the mine rapidly" or 
"it has been arranged to sink the shaft without delay." 

6. "It is announced that concentrating facilities will 
be provided for near the mouth of the tunnel," meaning 
thereby that a concentrator is to be built near the mouth 
of the adit. 

7. "The Frisco Co. is unable to place its new equip- 
ment in commission." That is, the company is unable to 
start its new machinery (for lack of fuel). 

8. "Vigorous cross-cutting is being inaugurated." 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 87 

9. '^The inauguration of an extensive plan of develop- 
ment. ' ' 

10. **An extensive campaign of development has been 
inaugurated. ' ' 

11. ''Ore shipments have been inaugurated.*' 

12. ''Work on a 50-ton mill is to be inaugurated in 
September. ' ' 

13. "Extensive improvements have been made." 

14. "An extensive mine equipment has been pro- 
vided.'' 

Both extensive and inaugurate are good words in the 
wrong place. Extensive means extended widely; in No. 
10 it is not misplaced, but in No. 9, 13, and 14 'elaborate' 
is meant. In No. 13 'big' would probably do, and in No. 
14 'expensive' may be surmised. As to inaugurate, that 
word, like prosecute, is merely grandiose. The President 
is inaugurated, not a "plan of development." In No. 8 
'started' is meant; in No. 9 inauguration should be 'com- 
mencement'; in No, 10, 11, and 12, 'begun' or 'commenced' 
will serve. 

15. "A new tramway is being installed." It is being 
'erected' or 'built.' 

16. "A large per cent of the mining and milling instal- 
lations are designed by machinery builders." Per cent is 
wrong ; it should be used only as a term of precision with 
a number, here it means merely 'portion' or 'proportion,' 
that is, "A large proportion of the mining and milling 
machinery was designed by manufacturers." Installation 
is a pretentious word. You install or induct a man into 
office. 

17. "Since the installation of the air-compressor, oper- 
ations have been extensively prosecuted." Thorough jour- 



88 A GUIDE TO 

nalese. Installation is out of scale, for a two-drill com 
pressor has been erected to hasten the work or to enlarge 
the scale of it. Installation, inaugurate, and prosecute are 
words that are the stock-in-trade of the boosters of wild- 
cats. 

18. ^^As soon as the heading has been advanced far 
enough, drifting both east and west is to be inaugurated.*' 
Here driving is required. You inaugurate a new reign or 
a presidential term, but you do 7iot inaugurate the driving 
of a level or the cooking of an egg, 

19. ^^In some instances the adoption and encourage- 
ment of the contract system has proved most advanta- 
geous and efficacious/* An example of tautology; the 
last two words serve no useful purpose. 

20. ^'A mine in which the company recently acquired 
extensive interests.'* Here the objectionable word means 
simply 'large.' It might be expensive, but not extensive, 
for interests (that is, holdings) are not measured by their 
length, but their size or their value. 

21. ''The first extensive shipment came from the 425- 
ft. level." 'Important' or 'large' can be substituted. 

22. "In the earlier working of the mines, tunnels of 
considerable length — approximating some twelve miles or 
more — were driven for the drainage of seepage." This 
should read "In the early working of the mines adits of 
great length — twelve miles or more — were driven to drain 
the seepage." 

23. "Limestone of any character in the producing sec- 
tions of the district seem equally prolific." This should 
be: "The different limestones in the productive areas of 
the district seem to be alike ore-bearing." Prolific is not 
justified. Sections is colloquial. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 89 

24. '^As it was a sine qua non that this shaft should be 
sunk 100 ft. within three months." The subject does not 
warrant a Latin quotation, nor does the sense require it. 
The use of Greek or Latin, French or German, where Eng- 
lish suffices is a mark not of the literate, but of the pseudo- 
literate, man. The sentence can be improved by saying 
either that it was necessary or a condition of the contract 
that the shaft should be sunk as stated. 

25. **It is a foregone conclusion that had it been pos- 
sible to build a mill, a large amount of low-grade ore, car- 
rying more or less value, would have undergone a method 
of treatment, rather than be thrown over the dump." 
Sloppy writing. If it had no value, it would not be ore ; 
the more or less is only the pretense of accuracy. An ore 
does not undergo a method, it undergoes a treatment. The 
sentence may be amended thus : ' ^ It is certain that if it had 
been possible to build a mill, a large amount of low-grade 
ore would have been treated, instead of bemg thrown over 
the dump." 

26. ^^The ores of the Bully Hill district contain much 
higher values in gold and silver." The writer means, and 
he ought to say, that: ^^The ores, etc., are richer in gold 
and silver." 

27. *'A six inch streak of ore is exposed that carries 
values from assay tests varying from 1000 to 1500 ozs. in 
silver to the ton." This is as full of errors as a water- 
melon is of pips. Hyphens are needed between six and 
inch, also between assay and tests. The streak of ore car- 
ries not values nor algebraic formulae, but metals ; in this 
case, silver. The plural of the abbreviation oz. is inex- 
cusable. The sentence may be amended thus: '^A six-inch 
streak of ore is exposed, carrying from 1000 to 1500 o/. 



90 A GUIDE TO 

silver per ton, as determined by assay-tests. " If it is im- 
portant to bring out the fact that assays have been made, 
it is well to add the last clause ; as a rule the determina- 
tion of the contents of an ore requires assays. 

Some of the Worst. — Here is one describing the opera- 
tion of a machine-drill : 

** Following the shooting, the mucker begins his work, 
the drill man climbs to the top of the muck, and by the 
time the four feet of ground shot down is mucked out, 
he is again ready to shoot his round of holes." Muck, 
muck, muck — it is the very muck of writing. The word 
means filth or manure. It became used as a synonym for 
dirt, the miner 's term for broken rock. Thus muck refers 
to the shattered rock resulting from blasting ; it is not in 
the least filthy. Shovelers, that is, those who shovel the 
broken rock into the car at the face of a level or cross-cut, 
are now called muckers. What gain is there here ? Shov- 
eler is significant, mucker is the rubbish of words. 

The next example comes from a description of the small 
locomotives used in mines. It reads : 

*^Face gathering, wherein the locomotive must enter the 
room, imposes conditions which call for distinctly special 
treatment in the design and equipment of a locomotive of 
high efficiency. The ordinary haulage locomotive in nearly 
••{l] cases is totally unfitted to this work, which involves 
i)peration in narrow quarters, around sharp curves, over 
])()or1y laid tracks, etc. The locomotive of real value in room 
work is one which, by reason of proportions and construc- 
tion, will go wherever a mine car will run, and with equal 
facility. It must be compact, no wider than the wheels, 
with short wheel-base and small wheels, and without long 
overhang at either end." 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 91 

This is the sort of thing that makes a technical descrip- 
tion seem like a cryptogram or a slab of picture writing 
from Nineveh. To any one versed in the subject of loco- 
motives for underground use, this paragraph is intelli- 
gible, but only that. It succeeds in making the subject as 
uninteresting as possible and the meaning as much be- 
neath the surface as the locomotive itself. 

Both of these examples come from ^write-ups,' the trade 
name for a eulogistic description of a manufactured arti- 
cle, prepared in the interest of the manufacturer and writ- 
ten loy a man more accustomed to the use of a screw- 
driver than a pen. The worst writing concerning tech- 
nical matters is to be found in such disguised advertise- 
ments. They ought to be attractively written, to serve 
their purpose; failing to do so, they illustrate the essen- 
tial inefficiency of bad writing. 

Similarly: *^The Union Leasing Company has encoun- 
tered a promising vein 10 ft. north of the shaft.'' You 
can, if you are not unsympathetic, visualize the episode 
and, with the eyes of the mind, you will see the company 
going forth to meet a promising vein, and shaking hands 
with it at a place 10 ft. north of the shaft. 

Exploitation and exploration are often confused. Ex- 
ploit means to put to use ; explore means to search. Ex- 
ploitation refers to the extraction and utilization of ore ; 
exploration refers to the work involved in looking for 
more ore. Thus (speaking of faults) : '^In certain cases, 
by judicious exploitation, the veins have been recovered 
and production continued." Obviously, exploration is 
meant. 

''The exploration of the mine has yielded a hirge output 
of excellent ore.'' While ore is broken in the course of 



92 A GUIDE TO 

exploratory work, it is fairly certain that exploitation is 
intended in this case. 

''It is good policy to do some further explaitation work 
in search of the faulted vein. ' ' Here, ' exploratory work ' 
is meant. 

''There is a six-inch calcite vein with low silver values 
located on the property which crosses the main vein.'' 
Does the 'property' cross the main vein or it is the 'cal- 
cite vein' that does so? Many corrections are needed. 
The sentence should read: "On the property there is a 
six-inch vein of calcite, poor in silver, and this small vein 
crosses the main vein. ' ' 

"It is quite clear from local information that the man- 
ager has gathered that large bodies of ore will be found. ' ' 
Probably it was no clearer than the construction of the 
sentence. The relative pronoun that and the conjunction 
that are used in a confusing way. Is it " clear, from local 
information, that the manager has concluded that large 
bodies of ore will be found," or is it "clear from local in- 
formation, collected by the manager, that large bodies of 
ore will be found"? We presume the latter to be correct. 

Contemplate is a word dear to the chroniclers of wild- 
cat operations. The promoters of feline finance ' ' contem- 
plate the inauguration of a campaign of production," the 
"installation of a mill," or the "placing of a smelter in 
commission." Thus: "The Granite Mining Co. is contem- 
plating the starting of the pumps." You can almost see 
them; a group of thoughtful men staring at the pumps 
and expecting them to be willed into movement. 

Estate is another word belonging to the jargon of the 
promoter, for it suggests enough of fixed ownership to 
obscure the fact that the property consists of a number of 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 93 

unpatented claims, the title to which may be lost by failure 
to do the assessment work. So ''the estate of the Manhat- 
tan Morgan Corporation will be actively explored, the 
directors having decided to prosecute a vigorous cam- 
paign of development,'' which, being interpreted, means 
that they intend to sink a few prospect holes in order to 
have an excuse for selling their heavily watered stock. 
Grandiose language usually indicates flamboyant finance. 



Many clumsy sentences and awkward locutions may be 
avoided by a little restraint in the use of prepositions; 
they are often meaningless little obstacles interjected into 
the flow of speech. 



Technical words are designed for a specific purpose, as 
tools are kept apart for special duties. It is a mistake to 
open a can of sardines with a chisel. Such use blunts the 
chisel and destroys its service in carpentering. The sig- 
nificance of words intended for special uses is impaired 
when they are made to do a common service, for which 
other words are available. 



94 A GUIDE TO 

HINTS IN GRAMMAR. 

Subjunctive. — In conditional sentences the use of the 
subjunctive mood is correct, but it is dying out so rapidly 
as to make it seem an affectation, except in the case of 
were for was. On the whole, the subjunctive forms are 
best avoided in technical writing, as being unnecessary, 
and dangerous to all save the most practised writers. 

Shall and Will. — The idiomatic use comes so naturally 
to a small minority that they know not how they do it, 
while to the majority misuse is so ingrained that rules are 
ineffective. The directions for the employment of shall 
apply to should ; and those referring to will, apply also to 
would.* 

1. When shall and will retain their original meanings 
of command and wish, respectively, they are used in all 
three persons unchanged. Thus : 

Thou shalt not steal. 

You should not say such things. 

Whom should he meet but Jones. 

I will have my way. 

I would not have it done for the world. 

A coat will last two years with care. 

2. In plain statements as to the future, the first person 
has shall, while the second and third persons have will. 
Thus: 

I shall, you will, die some day. 

Shall I, will they, be here tomorrow? 

We should, he would, have consented if asked. 

I should, you would, like to go. 

♦These rules are taken, with most of the iUustrations, from 'The 
King's English.' Clarendon Press, 1906. 




TECHNICAL WRITING. 95 

3. In future and conditional statements that include 
an expression of the speaker's wish, intention, menace, 
assurance, consent, refusal, promise, and so forth, the 
first person has will, while the second and third persons 
have shall. Thus: 

I will tell you presently. 

You shall repent it before long. 

He shall not have any of it. 

We would go if we could. 

They should have had it if they had asked. 

I will drown and no one shall save me. 

There are other rules, with their exceptions, but for 
technical writers these three will suffice. The second rule 
is the one oftenest broken, without excuse. 

The Possessive Case. — This is used excessively, and in 
cases where the preposition of is desirable. Thus: '^The 
ore has been compared to a nut struck by a hammer 
whose blow has separated the valueless shell (the quartz) 
from the valuable kernel (the gold)." Whose is the pos- 
sessive case of who ; which is not inflected and it is as the 
possessive of which that whose is employed in this case. 
In poetry and by a personification of the thing men- 
tioned, it becomes proper to use whose. Thus: ''The city 
whose towers he saw in the distance." In the example 
quoted above, ''hammer" is not used in any personal or 
poetic sense, and it should read: "A hammer the blow of 
which has separated, etc." If this sounds queer, re-write 
the sentence and avoid the dilemma. 

Similarly, its is often used where of it would be better. 
Thus: "The mine is valuable and its development will 
furnish scope for an able man." It is more correct to say, 
"and the development of it will furnish scope," for the 



96 



A GUIDE TO 



mine does not possess a development, that engineering 
result being a consequence of operations performed. 

** Clever chemists invent processes whose success hinges 
on their application in practice." This can be improved 
thus: ** Clever chemists invent processes the success af 
which hinges on the application of them in practice. ' ' 

It may be a matter of taste and the want of it; those 
that doubt the advantage of using the preposition in 
place of the possessive (of them, of it, of him, etc., in place 
of their, its, his, etc.) should read Ruskin. But apart 
from literary form, with which the technical writer is 
supposed to have no concern, it is a fact that the careful 
use of grammatical inflections will enable him to express 
himself more clearly, and that is the whole purpose of the 
present criticism. For it can readily be retorted that 
Ruskin mixes his which and that in order not to interfere 
with the marvellous assonance of his writing and to pre- 
serve a euphony characteristic of a prose style that is 
finer than poetry, but the technical writer, whom we 
have in view, aims simply to make his meaning clear, 
that is, to convey his ideas on practical subjects with the 
minimum of ambiguity. In poetry, ambiguity may add 
a charm ; in technology, it is a nuisance only. Therefore, 
keep in mind the rules of grammar, and when the appli- 
cation of them produces a result that is not euphonious 
or gives a sentence of doubtful meaning, you will know 
that it needs re-arrangement. In most cases you will find 
that grammar has been respected at the expense of idiom 
or both at the cost of lucidity. Make everything subserve 
the purpose of your writing, that is, to be understood be- 
yond peradventure. 

The use of a singular verb with a plural noun is a locu- 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 97 

tion that bothers many people. It is correct to say that 
''500 tons of ore is treated daily/' because ''500 tons of 
ore" is an aggregate and performs the function of a col- 
lective noun. The idea is of a quantity of ore as a whole, 
all of which is treated in a continuous operation. But it 
is proper to say : ' ' Five tons of ore were tested in lots of 
one ton each with different cyanide solutions so as to 
ascertain which strength of solution would give the high- 
est extraction. ' ' Here the idea is of five different entities, 
each of which was treated by itself. So we say : 

"A hundred tons of ore is shipped to the smelter, while 
350 tons is milled at the mine." 

To many this locution is offensive because it carries an 
illogical idea; therefore, avoid it by using a different 
phrasing when possible. 



98 A GUIDE TO 

MINOR MATTERS. 

Punctuation. — This is a subject fitter for a chapter than 
a paragraph, but the limits of this little essay will not 
permit of an exhaustive treatment. The aim of punctua- 
tion is to indicate the manner in which the writing is to 
be read; it ''does for the eye what vocal stress does for 
the ear.'' Barrett Wendell summarizes the uses of the 
four principal marks of punctuation thus: ''The period 
is the strongest mark of punctuation ; it marks the limits 
of sentences. The next strongest mark is the colon; 
weaker, but still stronger than the comma, is the semi- 
colon; weakest and most frequent of all is the comma.''* 
Herbert Spencer adopted the plan of placing actual spaces 
between the groups of sentences dealing with the sepa- 
rate ideas expressed in a single paragraph. Undoubt- 
edly we could mark the varying duration of vocal pause 
between words, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs by 
blank spaces of graduated length, but punctuation marks 
are deemed the most effective way of doing so. 

Abrupt change of thought and opposition of ideas is 
indicated by the dash, which is overworked by amateurs. 
The colon suggests a sequel ; it serves to introduce a spe- 
cific statement. It used to be employed to indicate conse- 
quential statements: those prompted by the thought pre- 
ceding; but for such a purpose it has become customary 
to adopt the semicolon. The latter is now a misnomer, 
for it is not a half-colon, rather, it is what it resembles, 
namely, a compromise between the period and comma, the 
two marks of which it is built. The interrogation point ( ?) 
and the exclamation ( !) are used but little in modern 

♦'English Composition.' Page 83. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 99 

writing, being deemed affected, for the ideas of doubt and 
astonishment are expressed more incisively by words 
than by punctuation. 

The comma is needed before the last member of an enu- 
meration that includes three or more. Thus from ^^Dick, 
Tom and Harry arrived today,'' it might be inferred that 
Tom and Harry arrived in company, and that Dick came 
by himself. To take an example from technical writing : 
^^This card system divides itself into several parts, 
namely, correspondence, technical information, catalogues 
and miscellaneous. ' ' This means that there are three sub- 
divisions, one of which is ^* catalogues and miscellaneous" ; 
if, however, a comma precedes the and, the sentence will 
mean (as intended) that there are four sub-divisions, as 
stated. Also the sentence, '*He left a wife, son and daugh- 
ter,'' The son and daughter become Siamese twins. 

The utility of this function of the comma is seen in the 
following example: ^^To obviate excessive expense for 
power, stoping and hoisting must be done in the day- 
time." Here ^^ stoping and hoisting" are purposely 
joined in opposition to ^^ power," as would not be the 
case, for example, if a writer were in the habit of saying, 
incorrectly, that ^' power, stoping and hoisting are three 
important items of expense." The example quoted at 
the beginning of this paragraph cannot be misunderstood 
by those accustomed to write ''power, stoping, and hoist- 
ing are three items of expense," using a comma before 
the ajid, to mark the grouping. 

The double quotation mark '' — " should be used only 
to indicate matter actually quoted from a speaker or a 
writer. The single quotation mark ' — ' should be used 
in giving titles of books or articles, as Bosqui's 'Cyanide 



100 ^^B ^ GUIDE TO 

Practice.' '*He read a paper entitled 'Secondary Enrich- 
ment of Ore Deposits'." Use the single quotation also 
for special or local technical terms, as ^mundic/ * gusher/ 
^fossick,' ^mucker/ * black jack,' The single quote is apolo- 
getic and indicates words not yet accepted in good litera- 
ture, such as 'graft', 'wild-cat', 'shyster', 'duffer', 're- 
bater. ' 

Carboniferous is the name of a geological period, which 
in England (where the term originated) was identified 
with the formation of coal, but the coal measures of other 
countries belong to different geological periods, such as 
the Cretaceous and Tertiary. Carbonaceous means con- 
taining or yielding carbon. Some writers use 'carbonif- 
erous' when they mean 'carbon-bearing' and this makes 
confusion with Carboniferous; for instance, in Missouri 
there is a Carboniferous limestone that is carbonaceous. 
Thus: "The mineral solutions came in contact with the 
carbonaceous material of the lower Coal Measures or some 
other precipitating agency." Give words their special 
duties and so strengthen their significance. Let Carbon- 
iferous stand for the name of the formation, and carbon- 
aceous refer to richness in carbon. 

Region refers to a large territory of ill defined extent; 
district is applied to a defined and relatively small area. 
Thus : ' ' The Silverton district is one of the most produc- 
tive in the San Juan region of Colorado." "The Ward- 
ner district is part of the Coeur d'Alene region of Idaho." 
"The zinc and lead mining region of southwestern Mis- 
souri includes the Joplin, Webb City, Carterville, Oro- 
nogo, Galena, and Baxter Springs districts." "In the 
Rocky Mountain region the principal mining centres are 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 101 

at a high altitude, as, for instance, the Leadville district, 
which is two miles above sea-level." 

Camp is often used as a synonym for district, but it be- 
comes a misnomer when once a mining settlement has 
passed out of its tented or temporary stage of growth. 
Field is employed by Englishmen much as camp is used 
by Americans. *^The goldfields of Australia are south of 
the equator." *^0n this (the Rand) field white labor is 
at a discount." ^*The zinc field of Missouri is prosper- 
ous." ^'The coalfields of West Virginia." 

By compounding, the bucolic suggestiveness of Afield' 
is lessened, so that we employ * coalfield' and ^goldfield' 
without a sense of incongruity. Compare * battlefield.' 
But as mines are usually in the mountains or on the des- 
ert, the use of field may well be avoided as being with- 
out significance, if not misleading. We have region, ter- 
ritory, tract, area, district, belt. Let the farmer have his 
field and the soldier his camp ; the miner has words enough 
for his own purpose. 

The word balance is used too often as the equivalent of 
remainder. Thus: ''The flume has been re-built for a 
greater part of its length and the balance will be thor- 
oughly repaired." Balance suggests equalization, an 
effort to produce equilibrium or to keep in due propor- 
tion. Here it means the remainder or smaller part of the 
flume. There is no suggestion of poise or adjustment. 

Latinity. — Elsewhere* I have attacked the employment 
of words of Latin origin when plain English will serve 
the purpose. The excessive use of long technical terms 
is becoming less common as it is realized that they are 
often unnecessary, besides being ugly and pretentious. 

♦See Appendix. 



102 A GUIDE TO 

We leave them nowadays to the charlatan. Yet some 
good men err that way, thus : ' ' The mineral is non-cuprif- 
erous and auriferous/' This was written by a quiet 
thoughtful writer usually free from pyrotechnics. Is it 
not better to say that **the mineral contains gold but not 
copper. ' ' 

In their effort to splurge, some writers use silicious 
when they mean carrying quartz, which is a particular 
form of silica; they use metasomatic until it becomes 
only a wordy cloud; and when they say calcareous, it is 
uncertain whether they refer to the presence of aragonite, 
calcite, or limestone, or merely a composition that in- 
cludes calcium oxide. They use a long word that is com- 
prehensive but indefinite in place of a short word that 
is less pompous but more definite. Such writers use data 
and strata as if they were singular nouns — a lapse to be 
debited occasionally against university graduates! 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 103 

SPECIFICATIONS. 

In preparing manuscript, write on one side of the paper 
only and use sheets of uniform size. Use the typewriter, 
if convenient. If written by hand, print all proper names 
carefully. Allow space between lines so that corrections 
can be made without crowding. A foot-note should be 
written in the manuscript immediately under the place 
to which it refers, and a line should be drawn across the 
page both above and below it. Foot-notes should be care- 
fully given. An asterisk or other sign may serve to corre- 
late one or two notes, but when many foot-notes are neces- 
sary it is best to number them, thus : 

^R. A. F. Penrose ^Tin Deposits of the Malay Peninsula' ; 
Trans. A. I. M. B., Vol. XX, pp. 64 to 92. 

^Journal Amer. Soc. Nav. Eng., Vol. II, Pt. 3, p. 17. 

In referring to authors or the names of persons, give 
the initials. Exercise care in this detail. Any man has a 
right to be annoyed if his name is spelled wrongly, for it 
is the one thing that is peculiarly his own. 

In tabulated statements, the head of a column should 
end with a period. Headings should be uniform as re- 
gards abbreviation. Single words or the first of the sev- 
eral words in a description should begin with a capital. 

Time by the clock may be written thus : 5 :40. 

Write January 14, not 14th of January. 

Instead of 8 in. to 10 in., write 8 to 10 in. ; and instead 
of 30° to 40°, say 30 to 40°. 

Capitalize the names of geologic formations and pei*i- 
ods: Carboniferous rocks, Red Beds of the Trias, Ter- 
tiary period. 

Points of the compass ordinarily are not capitalized, 



104 A GUIDE TO 

except when they refer to a region, as ''conditions in the 
South/' ''business in the West." This applies also to 
their derivatives eastern, western, etc., as "in western 
Colorado," "in southern California"; but "on the East- 
ern seaboard, " " according to Western methods. ' ' 

Always capitalize State when it refers to a State of the 
Union (America) or of the Commonwealth (Australia) ; 
thus "a state of uncertainty" or "a state of inebriety," 
but "the State of Montana," "the State of New South 
Wales, ' ' and ' ' the State of Sonora. ' ' This rule applies to 
Territory also, as "the Territory of Alaska." 

Capitalize Federal when it refers to the Government, 
also Empire, Government, Nation, and Kepublic when 
they are employed specifically, as: "The resources of the 
Government," "the future of the Nation," "the wealth 
of the southern Republic ' ' ; but ' ' the republic of letters. ' ' 

Proper names that have become trade terms are not 
capitalized. For instance, Bessemer is capitalized only 
as the name of a man or a town ; we speak of bessemer 
steel, bessemer process. The same rule holds good in 
Portland cement, plaster o^ paris, german silver, muntz 
metal, babbitt metal, china clay. 

In geographical names the capital is not required for 
the last member except when important, thus, we have 
Hudson river but Atlantic Ocean; Delaware bay, but 
Rocky Mountains. County, lake, valley, basin, and river 
should not be capitalized, but it is proper to write Coast 
range. Great Basin, Front range, Great Lakes. 

Where the name of a company is not given in full, use 
a lower case c, as : The Smith company, the North Pacific 
company. When given in full, a capital C is required, 
thus : The Smith Smelting & Mining Co., the North Pacific 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 



105 



Railroad Company. Also 'the Company' when referring 
to a particular company, the full name of which has been 
previously given. 

Employ italics to signify foreign words: *'The property 
covered 32 pertenencias,^^ ^'The oficinas in Chile." *'It 
was a case of sauve qui peut/^ Names of ships, newspa- 
pers, and periodicals go in italics: *'The Baltic sailed 
today." ^^The Times states that." *'You will see it in 
the North American Review,^' 

preventative 

suppositious 

partially, when meaning in part 

re-agent 

re-enforce 

further, in speaking of distance 

deliminate 

permanent, as applied to ore 

excepting 

''As far as is applied to undoubted facts, thus: "He 
went as far as Denver. ' ' 

So far as is used before clauses containing a statement 
of doubt or varying fact, thus : ''So far as known the ore 
is easy to treat by cyanidation. ' ' 

Use English whenever possible, when writing in English. 



Preventive 


not 


Supposititious 




Partly 




Reagent 




Reinforce 




Farther 




Delimit 




Persistent 




Except 





I 



ot to write 


e.g. 


but for example 




viz. 


" namely 




i.e. 


" that is 




via 


' ' by way of 




vice versa 


" the reverse 




in situ 


" in place 



In choosing between the use of the terminations ic and 



106 



A GUIDE TO 



ical, as in geologic and geological, it is well to adopt the 
practice of restricting the first to natural phenomena, 
relations, conditions, and products, while the second is 
used in designating the works of man, as in research, lit- 
erature, speculation. So that we get : 



Geologic formation 
Geologic structure 
Electric energy 
Geographic conditions 

The following are correct: 

Acquiesce in 
Adapted to 
Averse to 
Compare with 
Consist in gives a definition 
Consist of gives a compo- 
sition. 
Content with 
Contrast with 
Differ from 
Different from ♦ 



Geological survey 
Geological map 
Electrical machine 
Geographical bulletin 

Disagree with 
Favorable to 
In view of 
Necessary to 
Necessity for 

Need of 
Oblivious of 
Tamper with 
Tinker at 
With a view to 



Use upward, downward, toward, omitting the unneces- 
sary s. 

In speaking of the strike of veins, it is not necessary 
to give the complementary point of the compass. Thus: 
**The lode strikes northwest," not * northwest-southeast. ' 
The * southeast' is an obvious inference. 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 107 



THINGS TO AVOID. 



Do not begin a paragraph with a present participle, 
lest you flounder ere the close. 

Reject pristine, erstwhile, and festive. They mark the 
last stage of journalistic vulgarity. 

Speak not of the Phoenix and his ashes, nor of the 
Augean stables, nor of a pilgrimage to Mecca, nor of the 
labors of Hercules, for such allusions have been worn 
threadbare long ago. 

Avoid dashes and parentheses, which to the reader are 
as hurdles to a weary runner. 

Abstain from italics; let your statements be emphatic 
without them. Italics, like the underlining in a school- 
girl 's letter, are apt to be over-worked. Reserve them for 
special occasions. 



108 A GUIDE TO 

GOOD AND BAD WRITING. 

It is evident that most writers try to economize the 
mental effort of the writer, not the reader. Bad writing 
is generally due to sheer laziness, simply mental and 
physical sloth. It is easier to be verbose than to be terse ; 
it is less trouble to write than to think. A writer who is 
explicit has taken trouble ; the man who is vague assumes 
that the reader **will know what I mean." But he won't. 
Hence much trouble. Poor writing calls forth bad lan- 
guage. 

Huxley said that the ars artium, the greatest of all arts, 
was to be able to say: **I do not know.'' To distinguish 
between what we know and what we think we know is the 
beginning of knowledge. This applies to writing. The 
worst performances in print are made by the men who 
mix fact with fancy, their knowledge with their igno- 
rance, the things they apprehend with the things they 
suppose, the crystal and the cloud, neither clear water nor 
solid land, but a morass into which the farther you go 
the worse your plight. 

To young writers it is well to say : Separate what you 
know at first hand about your subject from what you 
have learned at second hand, keep the fact distinct from 
the theory, not that 'one is necessarily better than the 
other, but they thrive best when kept apart. Barrett 
Wendell says truly : ^ ^ To be clear in narrative, or in expo- 
sition, or in argument, or in any kind of discourse what- 
ever, we must evidently proceed from what is known to 
what is unknown." And the method, being logical, is 
also that followed naturally by the reader, whose mental 
processes reflect the activities within the writer's brain — 



TECHNICAL WRITING. 109 

and the more of it the writer gives to his work, the less 
the reader will have to consume. 

Unpractised writers usually begin an article with one 
or two paragraphs of valueless generalization, mere wordi- 
ness preparatory to an explicit statement, like the tuning 
of violins before a symphony. The musician cannot help 
it because the strings of his instrument will not stay taut ; 
they must be tightened to preserve the pitch of the violin. 
The writer, on the contrary, even if he goes through a 
preliminary tuning with his pen, need not inflict his 
reader with the result of such clumsy flourishes; he can 
delete, and start at the real beginning of his literary 
effort. And when it is over, there is no need to mask his 
retreat, like a cuttle-fish, with an inky discoloration of 
the clear waters of thought. Those who begin with unnec- 
essary tunings are apt to end with gratuitous discords, a 
wordy introduction is apt to be balanced with a verbose 
conclusion. Spare your reader both, get to the heart of 
your subject without loss of his mental energy, and when 
you have said what you want to say, stop — neither 
abruptly nor diffusely, but in a frank and friendly fashion 
that is as polite as it is prompt. 

In preparing to write on any subject, it is well to turn 
it over in the mind, and then to make a list of headings, 
which stand for separate ideas. If these are put on cards 
or slips of paper, they can be arranged and re-arranged 
until the sequence appears logical; if logical, it will be 
expressive, that is, effective from the reader's point of 
view. In the course of selecting and shifting the head- 
ings, new thoughts will be suggested and the whole matter 
put into shape. For the act of writing precipitates 



110 A GUIDE TO 



thought, transforming amorphous ruminations into crys- 
talline ideas. 

Barrett Wendell has said eloquently that ^^ whatever 
our subject-matter, our task is to translate the evanescent 
immaterial realities of thought and emotion into written 
words. No matter how humble our task may seem, we are 
really performing, well or ill, an act of creative imagina- 
tion. '^ Hence the pleasure of the writer who knows that 
he has, in some sort, transferred to paper the thought that 
was vibrant in his mind ; it is like the delight of the musi- 
cian who strikes a true chord and feels the reverberations 
tingle through every pulse. At best, written language is 
clumsy ; it lacks the tones and undertones, the expression 
and gesture, of the spoken word. Most writing stands for 
but a fraction of the thought that brought it into being; 
by the time the words have impinged upon the sight and 
intelligence of the reader, a large part of the warm life 
that they had when uttered by the writer has shriveled 
and grown cold. Only now and then does a man arise, 
like Huxley or Ruskin, with such a mastery of the pen as 
to transform the immaterial thought into sculptured 
writing that glows with vivid life, like the tinted marbles 
of the Greeks ; then indeed does man rise in proud superi- 
ority over the dumb brutes, for the constructive imagina- 
tion enables him to use the clumsy symbols of his speech 
and from them elaborate a vehicle of thought by which 
the experiences and sensations of a fleeting today are 
transmitted to his descendants in a distant tomorrow. 
Mortal, he becomes immortal; created, he becomes a 
creator. 



1 



TECHNICAL WRITING. Ill 

PARTING ADVICE. 

1. Have something to say; then say it. 

2. When uncertain as to your grammar or phrasing, 
re-write the sentence or paragraph. 

3. But do not tinker at a doubtful sentence; re-con- 
struct it thoroughly. 

4. Avoid the use of words the meaning of which is 
doubtful to you. 

5. Make your meaning clear ; then consider style. 

6. Remember the reader. 



1 



A PLEA FOR GREATER SIMPLICITY IN THE 
LANGUAGE OP SCIENCE.- 



By T. A. RICKARD. 

Scientific ideas are with difficulty soluble in human 
speech. Man, in his contemplation of the flux of phe- 
nomena at work all about him, is embarrassed by the want 
of a vehicle of thought adequate for expression, as a child 
whose stammering accents do not permit him to tell his 
mother the new ideas which suddenly crowd upon him 
when he meets with something alien to his experience. 

Our knowledge of the mechanism of nature has been 
undergoing a process of growth, much of which has been 
sudden. It is not surprising, therefore, that the incom- 
pletely formed ideas of science should become translated 
into clumsy language and that inexact thinking should 
be manifested by vagueness of expression. This inexact- 
ness is often veiled by the liberal use of sonorous Greek- 
Latin words. 

The growth of knowledge has required an increase in 
the medium of intellectual exchange. New conceptions 
have called for new terms. Sir Courtenay Boyle has 
pointed out that the purity of a nation's coinage is prop- 
erly safeguarded, while the verbal coinage of its national 
language is subject to no control. Specially qualified 
persons prepare the standards of gold and silver. This 
insures the absolute purity of the measures of commercial 

♦A paper read before Section E of the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, at Denver, on August 28, 1901. 

113 



114 I^^H A PLEA FOR 

exchange and gives the English sovereign and the Amer- 
ican gold-piece, for example, an assured circulation along 
all the avenues of commerce. It is not so with the stand- 
ards of speech. The nation debases its language with 
slang, with hybrid and foreign words, the impure alloys 
and the cheap imports of its verbal coinage, mere tokens 
that should not be legal tender on the intellectual ex- 
changes. France has an academy which in these matters 
has much of the authority given to the Mint, whose assay- 
ers test our metal coins; but in our country the mintage 
of words is wholly unrestricted, and, as a consequence, 
the English language, circulating as it does to all the four 
corners of the globe, has received an admixture of frag- 
ments of speech taken from various languages, just as the 
currency given to the traveler in exchange at the frontier, 
where empires meet, bears the mark of several govern- 
ments and passes with an equally liberal carelessness. 

Science ignores geographical lines and bemoans the 
babel of tongues which hinders the free interchange of 
ideas between all the peoples of the earth. Nevertheless, 
the international character of technical literature is sug- 
gested by the fact that three languages, French, German, 
and English, are practically recognized as the standard 
mediums of intellectual exchange. One of these affords 
the most lucid solvent of thought, another is the speech of 
the most philosophical of European people, and the third 
goes with world-wide dominion, so that each has a claim 
to become the recognized language of science. The broth- 
erhood of thinking men will have been fully recognized 
when all agree to employ the same tongue in their inter- 
course, but such a ^^ far-off divine event'' is not within 
the probabilities of the present, consequently there re- 



GREATER SIMPLICITY. 115 



mains only for us to make the best of our own particular 
language and to safeguard its purity, so that when it goes 
abroad the people of other countries may at least be 
assured that they are not dealing with the debased coin- 
age of speech. 

Barrie has remarked that in this age the man of science 
appears to be the only one who has anything to. say — and 
the only one who does not know how to say it. It is far 
otherwise in politics, an occupation that numbers among 
its followers a great many persons who have the ability 
for speaking far beyond anything worth the saying that 
they have to say. Nor is it so in the arts, the high priests 
of which, according to Huxley, have ^^the power of ex- 
pression so cultivated that their sensual caterwauling may 
be almost mistaken for the music of the spheres.'' In 
science there is a language as of coded telegrams, by the 
use of which a limited amount of information is conveyed 
through the medium of six-syllabled words. Even when 
not thus overburdened with technical terms it is too often 
the case that scientific conceptions are conveyed in a raw 
and unpalatable form, mere indigestible chunks of knowl- 
edge, as it were, which are apt to provoke mental dyspep- 
sia. Why, I ask, should the standard English prose of the 
day be a chastened art and the writing of science, in a 
great scientific era, merely an unkempt dressing of splen- 
did ideas? The luminous expositions of Huxley, the occa- 
sional irradiating imagery of Tyndall, the manly speech 
of Le Conte, and of a very few others, all serve simply to 
emphasize the fact that the literature of scientific research 
as a whole is characterized by a fiat and ungainly style, 
which renders it distasteful to all but those who have a 
great hunger for learning. 



116 A PLEA FOR 

To criticism of this sort the professional scientist can 
reply that he addresses himself not to the public at large, 
but to those who are themselves engaged in similar re- 
search, and he may be prompted to add to this the further 
statement that he cannot pitch the tone of his teachings 
so as to reach the unsensitive intelligence of persons who 
lack a technical education. Furthermore, he will claim 
that he cannot do without the use of the terms to which 
objection is made. However, in condemning the needless 
employment of bombastic words of classical origin, in 
place of plain English, I do not wish to be understood 
as attacking all technical terms. They are a necessary 
evil. Some of them are instruments of precision invented 
to cover particular scientific ideas. Old words have asso- 
ciations which sometimes unfit them to express new con- 
ceptions and therefore fresh words are coined. The com- 
plaint lodged against the pompous and ungainly wordiness 
of a large part of the scientific writing of the day is that 
it is an obstacle to the spread of knowledge. 

Let us consider the subject as it is thus presented. In 
the first place, does the excessive use of technical terms 
impede the advance of science? I think it does. It kills 
the grace and purity of the literature by means of which 
the discoveries of science are made known. Ruskin, him- 
self a most accurate observer of nature, and also a geolo- 
gist, said that he was stopped from pursuing his studies 
*^by the quite frightful inaccuracy of the scientific peo- 
ple's terms, which is the consequence of their always try- 
ing to write mixed Latin and English, so losing the grace 
of the one and the sense of the other. ' ' But grace of dic- 
tion is not needed, it may well be said ; that is true, and it 
is also true that a clear, forceful, unadorned mode of 



GREATER SIMPLICITY. 117 

expression is more difficult of attainment and more desir- 
able in the teaching of science than either grace or fluency 
of diction. One must not, as Huxley himself remarks, 
* Garnish the fair face of Truth with that pestilent cos- 
metic, rhetoric," and Huxley most assuredly solved the 
problem of how to avoid rhetorical cosmetics and yet con- 
vey deep reasoning on the most complex of subjects in 
addresses that are not only as clear as a trout stream, 
but are also brightened by warm touches of humanity, 
keen wit, and the glow of his own courageous manhood. 
Nevertheless, though clearness of expression be the first 
desired, yet grace is not to be scorned. When you have a 
teaching to convey, it is well to employ all the aids that 
will enable you to get a sympathetic hearing. Man lives 
not by bread alone, much less by stones. He likes his 
mental food garnished with a sauce. Let the cooking be 
good, of course, but a clief knows the value of a garniture. 

Our language is capable of a grace and a finish greater 
than we give it credit. That it is possible to write on 
geology, for instance, in the most exquisitely simple Eng- 
lish has been proved by Ruskin, whose 'Deucalion' and 
'Modern Painters' contain many pages describing accu- 
rately the details of the structure of rocks and mountains, 
and dealing with their geological features in language 
marked by the most sparing use of words that have not an 
Anglo-Saxon origin. 

The next aspect of the enquiry is whether the languajre 
of science, apart from the view of mere grace of style in 
literature, is not likely, in its present e very-day form, to 
delay the advance of knowledge by its very obscurity. 
Leaving the reader's feelings out of the argument, for the 
present, it seems obvious that the whole purpose of science. 



118 A PLEA FOR 

namely, the search after truth, which is best advanced by 
accuracy of observation and exactness of statement, is 
hindered by a phraseology that sometimes means very 
much but often means very little, and, on the whole, is 
most serviceable when required as a cloak for ignorance. 
To distinguish between what we know and what we think 
we know, to comprehend accurately the little that we do 
know, surely these are the foundations of scientific prog- 
ress. If a man knows what a thing really is, he can say 
so, describing it, for example, as being black or white ; if 
he does not know, he masks his ignorance by stating in a 
few Greek or Latin terms that it partakes of the general 
quality of grayness. Writers get into the habit of using 
words that they do not clearly understand themselves 
and that, as a consequence, must fail in conveying an 
exact meaning to their readers. Many persons who pos- 
sess only the smattering of a subject are apt to splash all 
over it with words of learned sound, which are more 
quickly acquired, of course, than the reality of knowledge. 
Huxley said that if a man does really know his subject 
*'he will be able to speak of it in an easy language and 
with the completeness of conviction with which he talks 
of an ordinary every-day matter. If he does not, he will 
be afraid to wander beyond the limits of the technical 
phraseology which he has got up. ' ^ If any scientific writer 
should complain that simplicity of speech is impracticable 
in dealing with essentially technical subjects, I refer him 
to the course of lectures delivered by Huxley to working- 
men, lectures which conveyed original investigations of 
the greatest importance, in language that was as easily 
understood by his audience as it was accurate when re- 
garded from a purely professional standpoint. 



GREATER SIMPLICITY. 119 

Science has been well defined as *' organized common 
sense"; let us then express its findings in something better 
than a mere jargon of speech and avoid that stupidity 
which Samuel Johnson, himself an arch-sinner in this re- 
spect, has fitly described as "the immense pomposity of 
sesquipedalian verbiage. ' ' George Meredith, a great mint- 
master of words, has recorded his objection to ''conversing 
in tokens not standard coin. ' ' Indeed the clumsy Latinity 
of much of our scientific talk is an inheritance from the 
schoolmen of the past; it is the degraded currency of a 
period when the vagaries of astrology and alchemy found 
favor among intelligent men. 

Vagueness of language produces looseness of knowledge 
in the teacher as well as the pupil. Huxley, in referring to 
the use of such comprehensive terms as ' development ' and 
'evolution,' remarked that words like these were mere 
"noise and smoke,'' the important thing being to have a 
clear conception of the idea signified by the name. Exam- 
ples of this form of error are easy to find. The word 
'dynamic' has a distinct meaning in physics, but it is ordi- 
narily employed in the loosest possible manner in geolog- 
ical literature. Thus, the origin of a perplexing ore de- 
posit was recently imputed to the effects produced by the 
"dynamic power" that had shattered a certain mountain. 
'Dynamic' is of Greek derivation and means powerful, 
therefore a 'powerful power' had done this thing; but in 
physics the word is used in the sense of active, as opposed 
to 'static' or stationary, and it implies motion resulting 
from the application of force. In the case quoted, and in 
many similar instances, the word 'agency' or 'activity' 
would serve to interpret the hazy idea of the writer, and 
there is every reason to infer, from the context, that he 



120 A PLEA FOR 

substituted the term * dynamic power ' merely as a frippery 
of speech. It is much easier to talk grandiloquently about 
a ^dynamic power/ which perpetrates unutterable things 
and reconstructs creation in the twinkling of an eye, than 
it is to make a careful study of a region, trace its struc- 
tural lines, and decipher the relations of a complicated 
series of faults. When this has been done and a writer 
uses comprehensive words to summarize activities which 
he has expressly defined and described, then indeed he has 
given a meaning to such words and he has a right to use 
them. 

In this connection it is amusing to remember how Rus- 
kin attacked Tyndall for a similar indiscretion. The latter 
had referred to a certain theory, which was in debate, and 
had said that it, and the like of it, was ^ ' a dynamic power 
which operates against intellectual stagnation." Ruskin 
commented thus: ^^How a dynamic power differs from an 
undynamic one, and, presumably, also, a potestatic dy- 
namis from an unpotestatic one — and how much more sci- 
entific it is to say, instead of — that our spoon stirs our 
porridge — that it ^operates against the stagnation of our 
porridge.' Professor Tyndall trusts the reader to recog- 
nize with admiration. ' ' 

Among geological names there is that comfortable word 
^metasomatosis' and its offspring of ^metasomatic inter- 
change,' ^metasomatic action,' 'metasomatic origin,' etc., 
etc. To a few who employ the term to express a particular 
manner in which rocks undergo change, it is a convenient 
word for a definite idea, but for the greater number of 
writers on geological subjects it is a wordy cloud, a neb- 
ular phrase, which politely covers the haziness of their 
knowledge concerning a certain phenomenon. When you 



GREATER SIMPLICITY. 121 

don 't know what a thing is, call it a * phenomenon ' ! 

Instances of mere vulgarity of scientific language are 
too numerous to mention. * Auriferous ' and ' argentiferous ^ 
are ugly words. They are unnecessary ones also. The 
other day a metallurgical specialist spoke of ^auriferous 
amalgamation' as though any process in which mercury 
is used could be gold-bearing unless it were part of the 
program that somebody should add particles of gold to the 
ore under treatment. A mining engineer, of the kind 
known to the press as an expert, described a famous lode 
as traversing ''on the one hand a feldspathic tufaceous 
rock'' and ''on the other hand a metamorphic matrix of 
a somewhat argillo-arenaceous composition." This is sci- 
entific nonsense, the mere travesty of speech. To those 
who care to dissect the terms used it is easily seen that 
the writer of them could make nothing out of the rocks 
he had examined save the fact that they were decomposed, 
and the rock which he described last might have been 
almost anything, for all he said of it ; since his description, 
when translated, means literally a changed matter of a 
somewhat clayey-sandy composition, which, in Anglo- 
Saxon is m-u-d ! The ' somewhat ' is the one useful word in 
the sentence. Such language may be described in the 
terms of mineralogy as metamorphosed English pseudo- 
morphic after blatherumskite. Some years ago, when I 
was at a small mine near Georgetown, in Colorado, a pro- 
fessor visited the underground workings and was taken 
through them. He immediately began to make a display 
of verbal fireworks, which bewildered the foreman and 
the other miners whom he met in the mine — all save one, 
a little Cornishman, who, bringing him a bit of clay that 
accompanied the walls of the lode, said to him, "What 



122 A PLEA FOR 

do 'ee call un, you?" The professor replied, *'It is the 
argillaceous remnant of an antediluvian world." Quick 
as a flash came the comment, ^* That's just what I told me 
pardner. ' ' He was not deceived by the vapor of words. 

Next consider the position of the reader. It is scarcely 
necessary at this date to plead for the cause of technical 
education and the generous bestowal of the very best that 
there is of scientific knowledge. The great philosophers 
of that New Reformation which marked the era of the 
publication of ^The Origin of Species' have given most 
freely to all men of their wealth of learning and research. 
When these have given so much we might well be less nig- 
gardly with our small change and cease the practice of 
distributing, not good wholesome intellectual bread, but 
the mere stones of knowledge, the hard fossils of what 
were once stimulating thoughts. In the ancient world the 
Eleusinian mysteries were withheld from the crowd and 
knowledge was the possession of a few. Do the latter day 
priests of science desire to imitate the attendants of the 
old Greek temples and confine their secrets to a few of the 
elect by the use of a formalism which is the mere abraca- 
dabra of speech? Among certain scientific men there is 
a feeling that scientists should address themselves only to 
fellow scientists, and that to become an expositor to the 
unlearned is to lose caste among the learned. It is the 
survival of the narrow spirit of the dark ages, before mod- 
ern science was born. There are not many, however, who 
dare confess to such a creed, although their actions may 
occasionally endorse it. On the whole, modern science is 
nothing if not catholic in its generosity. ^^To promote the 
increase of natural knowledge and to forward the appli- 
cation of scientific methods of investigation to all the prob- 



GREATER SIMPLICITY. 123 

lems of life" was the avowed purpose of the greatest of 
the philosophers of the Victorian era. 

There are those who are full of a similar good-will, but 
they fail in giving effect to it because they are unable to 
use language that can be widely understood. In its very 
infancy geology was nearly choked with big words, for 
Lyell, the father of modern geology, said, seventy years 
ago, that the study of it was ''very easy, when put into 
plainer language than scientific writers choose often un- 
necessarily to employ." At this day even the publications 
of the Geological Surveys of the United States and the 
Australian colonies, for example, are occasionally re- 
stricted in usefulness by erring in this respect, and as I 
yield to none in my appreciation of the splendid service 
done to geology and to mining by these Surveys, I trust 
my criticism will be accepted in the thoroughly friendly 
spirit with which it is offered. It seems to me that one 
might almost say that certain of these extremely valuable 
publications are 'badly' prepared because they seem to 
overlook the fact that they are, of course, intended to aid 
the mining community in the first place, and the public, 
whether lay or scientific, only secondarily. From a wide 
experience among those engaged in mining I can testify 
that a large part of the literature thus prepared is useless 
to them, and that no one regrets it more deeply than they, 
because there is a marked tendency among this class of 
workers to appreciate the assistance which science can 
give. Take, for example, a sentence like the following, 
extracted from one of the recent reports of the U. S. Geo- 
logical Survey: "The ore forms a series of imbricating 
lenses, or a stringer lead, in the slates, the quartz con- 
forming as a rule to the carunculated schistose structures. 



124 A PLEA FOR 

th6ugh occasionally breaking across laminae, and some- 
times the slate is so broken as to form a reticulated de- 
posit. '' This was written by one of our foremost geolo- 
gists and, when translated, the sentence is found to con- 
vey a useful fact, but is it likely to be clear to anyone but 
a traveling dictionary? A thoroughly literary man might 
know the exact meaning of the two or three very unusual 
words which are employed in this statement, but the ques- 
tion is, will it be of any use Avhatever even to a fairly edu- 
cated miner, or be understood by those who pay for the 
preparation of such literature, namely, the taxpayers ? An 
example of another kind is afforded by a Tasmanian geolo- 
gist who recently described certain ores as due to *'the 
effects of a reduction in temperature of the hitherto lique- 
fied hydroplutonic solutions, and their consequent regular 
precipitation." These solutions, it is further stated, pre- 
sumably for the guidance of those who wield the pick, 
*' ascended in the form of metallic superheated vapors 
which combined eventually with ebullient steam to form 
other aqueous solutions, causing geyser-like discharges at 
the surface, aided by subterranean and irrepressible pres- 
sure. ' ' At the same time certain * * dynamical forces ' ' were 
very busy indeed and ^* eventuated in the opening of fis- 
sures" — of which one can only regret that they did not 
swallow up the author as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram 
were once engulfed in the sight of all Israel. 

It will be well to contrast these two examples of exu- 
berant verbosity because the first befogs the statement of 
a scientific observation of value, made by an able man, 
while the second cloaks the ignorance of a charlatan, who 
masquerades his nonsense in the trappings of wisdom. 
Here you have an illustration of the harmfulness of this 



GREATER SIMPLICITY. 125 

kind of language, which obscures truth and falseness 
alike, to the degradation of science and the total confusion 
of those of the unlearned who are searching after infor- 
mation. 

Let the writer on scientific matters learn the derivation 
of the words he uses and then translate them literally into 
English before he uses them, and thereby avoid the uncon- 
scious talking of nonsense. If he knows not the exact 
meaning of the terms which offer themselves to his pen, 
let him avoid them and trust to the honest aid of his own 
language. ^' Great part of the supposed scientific knowl- 
edge of the day is simply bad English, and vanishes the 
moment you translate it,'' says Ruskin. The examples 
already given will illustrate this. ^' Every Englishman 
has, in his native tongue, an almost perfect instrument of 
literary expression, ' ' so says Huxley, and he illustrates his 
own saying. Huxley and Ruskin were wide apart in many 
things and yet they agreed in this. Ruskin proved abun- 
dantly that the language of Shakespeare and the Bible can 
be used as a weapon of expression keen as a Damascus 
sabre when it is freed from the rust of classic importa- 
tions, which make it clumsy as a crowbar. 

There is yet another reason against the excessive use of 
Greek-English words, in particular. Greece is not a rem- 
nant of extinct geography, but an existing land with an 
active people and a living language. The terms that pale- 
ontology has borrowed from the Greek may be returned 
by the Greeks to us. And, as Ruskin points out, *'What 
you, in compliment to Greece, call a ^Dinotherium, ' Greece, 
in compliment to you, must call a * Nasty-beastium, ' and 
you know the interchange of compliments can't last long." 

In all seriousness, however, is it too much to ask that 



126 A PLEA FOR 

such technical terms as are considered essential shall not 
be used carelessly, and that in publications intended for 
an untechnical public, as are most government reports, an 
effort be made to avoid them and, where unavoidable, 
those which are least likely to be understood shall be 
translated in foot-notes. Even as regards the transactions 
of scientific societies, I believe that those of us who are 
active members have little to lose and much to gain by 
confining the use of our clumsy terminology to cover ideas 
which we cannot otherwise express. By doing so we shall 
contribute, I earnestly believe, to that advancement of 
science which we all have at heart. 

In furtherance of this principle we must remember that 
language in relation to ideas is a solvent, the purity and 
clearness of which effect what it bears in solution. Whe- 
v/ell, in 'The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,' has 
expressed this view of the matter with noble eloquence. 
*' Language," he said, ''is often called an instrument of 
thought, but it is also the nutriment of thought ; or rather, 
it is the atmosphere in which thought lives; a medium 
essential to the activity of our speculative powers, al- 
though invisible and imperceptible in its operation, and 
an element modifying, by its qualities and changes, the 
growth and complexion of the faculties which it feeds. ' ' 

In considering the subject from this standpoint, there 
is borne in upon the mind a suggestion that carries our 
thought far beyond the confines of the matter under dis- 
cussion. Such power of speech as man possesses is a fac- 
ulty which appears to divide him from all other living 
things, while at the same time the imperfection of it 
weighs him down continually with the sense of an essential 
frailty. To be able to express oneself perfectly would be 



GREATER SIMPLICITY. 127 

divine, to be unable to make oneself understood is human. 
In 'Man's Place in Nature/ Huxley points out that the 
endowment of intelligible speech separates man from the 
brutes which are most like him, namely, the anthropoid 
apes, whom he otherwise resembles closely in substance 
and in structure. This endowment enables him to trans- 
mit the experience which in other animals is lost with 
each individual life; it has enabled him to organize his 
knowledge and to hand it down to his descendants, first 
by word of mouth and then by written words. If the 
experience thus recorded were properly utilized, instead 
of being largely disregarded, then man's advancement 
in knowledge and conduct would enable him to em- 
phasize much more than it is permitted him at pres- 
ent, his superiority over the dumb brutes. Consid- 
ered from this standpoint, language is a factor in 
the evolution of the race and an instrument that works 
for ethical progress. It is a gift most truly divine, which 
should be cherished as the ladder that has permitted of 
an ascent from the most humble beginnings and leads to 
the heights of a loftier destiny, when man, ceasing to 
stammer forth in accents which are but the halting expres- 
sion of swift thought, shall photograph his mind in the 
fulness of speech, and, neither withholding what he wants 
to say nor saying what he wants to withhold, shall be 
linked to his fellow by the completeness of a perfect com- 
munion of ideas. 




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